


Overlay

by WanSue



Series: Overwritten [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A rewrite of sorts of the series, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternative Universe - Canon Divergence, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Contemplation of the possibility of death, Family Meetings, Gen, High-functioning depression, Hogwarts Inter-House Friendships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, Instrospection, Not Beta Read, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Slytherin George Weasley, Slytherin Harry Potter, Slytherin Pride, Slytherin Ron Weasley, Swearing, The Order of the Phoenix - Freeform, olde magic, troupe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2020-11-29 12:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20963996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanSue/pseuds/WanSue
Summary: Summary within the Series' presentation.While the prologue is narrated from Ro's perspective, the rest aren't. In fact, there's this great jump in time from the prologue to the first chapter, practically seven years worth of time, which are narrated in The Bare Bones.This is an AU, and is important to know that Ro is a girl within a boy's body, and so I primarily reference to her by female pronouns, but for the time someone who doesn't know about her talks about her; if not explained, many people around them will only see a boy.





	1. Prologue

I'm pretty sure I wasn't two years old when my new family celebrated crazily You-Know-Who's defeat at the hands of a baby younger than me and suddenly it dawned on me just where and when had I been reborn.

For the record, I was crushed the moment I realized that a war was coming and nobody else ever gave that idea a thought. I was convinced of this, considering how this was the Harry Potter world which circled around the adventures this teenager lived at school, and this very character was around  _ my _ age.

That night I cried ugly tears born to sheer desperation.

But, watching my eccentric yet happy family, I resolved to not let my new life go to waste -mind you, maybe I reached that determinated way of thinking sometime around that month, I think. I've always tended to brood and freeze metaphorically speaking when confronted with a situation I dislike, and let things overwhelm me for a bit before I try to come up from the ashes. Of course being a baby didn't help matters to know what time was I living in.

Anyway, once I autoconvinced myself that I could at least try my best at staying alive  _ and _ enjoying being alive I started trying to relearn how to walk. Yeah, I think that I should have started crawling first, especially after having been a pouty todler who didn't want to get up – the less said about the little scar that dissected my right eyebrow the better.

The first two of my family I wanted to know -besides my parents who I already knew as intimately as I could- were my next two older brothers, identical twins and downright devious. They were hilarious, not gonna lie on that, and far more inteligent than what our mother gave them credit for, so spending time with them was always a blast.

And, sorry not sorry, it was a perfect defense. It was a million times more fun to be plotting with them than being caught in their pranks, mostly cause it was a great laught – also, because it was the best way to remind myself that I  _ could _ have good times here.

Percy was a good boy, if a bit stiff for my tastes -not that I blamed him, I was pretty similar to him though in another way. Like him, I spent much of my time reading Before, though not for the sake of studying but for mere enjoyment of the plots and character developments and those things that have never been respectable enough for any grown-up, whose only reading must include historicals novels and serious shit.

He was the one I went to for him to read me aloud about the Wizarding Britain's History, who sat me on his lap and cuddled me from behind with a book in front of us, and prepared me hot chocolate the mornings I woke up too soon, spooked by the bits I remembered of The Deadly Hallows film I went to the cinema to watch with my cousin.

Charlie and Bill... The were the oldest of us all, and by the time I realized where I was, Bill was already going to Hogwarts and Charlie was about to follow him, so I only saw them regularly at summers. Ginny was a cute baby, and I was impatiently waiting for her to grow her hair so I could braid it to my heart's content. I were meeting other members from the extended part of the family at special reunions, but few were really interesting.

Anyways, as the years happened one by one my brothers started Hogwarts and left Ginny, the twins and me to spend more time with our mother, who tried to taught us as much as she could – not a lot, when Fred and George were bent on pranking their way out of her clutches in any outrageous way.

I had two years since they started the school to learn everything I could from my mother, whom I was always asking about her previous Family and trying to integrate their ways. Sadly, my mother didn't remember a lot of it, but Great-Aunt Muriel did, and for my curiousity regarding it I was, along with Percy, her favourite great-nephew. That was something I didn't prevent: like Percy before me, I was offered to be paid my uniform and books on her account.

When she offered my older brother, he declined it; mother and father were there and rejected it with that air people have when they're too proud to accept charity. And I can understand not wanting it, but at the same time, I wasn't deterred by my parents' pride. At the end of the day, Great-Aunt Muriel was family, and family help each other, so to me it was perfectly natural of her to offer, and it wasn't bad of me to accept it, despite my parents' glowing faces with fury.

That really didn't help me to start my first year at Hogwarts with a great relatioship with them, but it was simply natural: Percy was going to be a Prefect, and they had already spent a lot on his uniform and a new owl. It was madness to think they could provide for me, and while I wouldn't usually care about reusing my siblings' clothes, they were pretty uncomfortable because of the size, and frayed. Sue me, I was a vain girl regarding few things, but I was. My hair and my clothes were basically _it_ for me; you can be cool and comfy with what you like.

So, case in point, our parents, Percy, the twins, Ginny and I were at King's Cross when I saw a little boy, far shorter and scrawnier than me with ill-put together glasses and the unruliest hair, and I knew him. I knew him and couldn't help it: my heart went out to him. He seemed so lost, so sad, so... _everything_, and I automatically knew that I'd try to help him as much as I could.

I didn't even wait for him to look in our direction; forgoing my family I walked till I was facing him. "Hello" I aimed a smile at him. "Hogwarts too?".

He had the biggest, most shinning, greenest eyes I had ever seen, and they were looking at me with the kind of awe one directs to a miracle (or that one sensitive person who gets you out of a nerve-wreaking situation). "Ah... yes, yes I am" he answered, looking at the floor nervously after he spent about two seconds watching me in silence. "Good, me too. My name is Ronald Weasley, but call me Ro, please". He was loking at me again, smiling shyly, and then he gave me his name. "My name is Harry. Harry Potter".

I helped him carrying his owl's cage so it wouldn't be at risk of falling and conduced him to where the rest of my family was, crossing to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, while talking to him about the things of Wizarding Britain I knew of. Mainly, pureblood traditions which Great-Aunt Muriel taught me, codes of conduct and honour and things like that. Boring af, if you ask me, but needed to survive here I believe. And also, part of his inheritance had his parents be alive to take care of him.

Nevertheless, he didn't seem to find that boring; he was pretty much absorbing it all and trying to imitate me when I showed him the different ways to bow before someone depending on their place in the hierarchy. While I was talking about the Lordships and the Sacred Twenty-Eight someone suddenly entered our compartment.

The newcomers were two big blokes, with a polished aspect but kind of roguish, like they could crack our heads with their hands, and a petite blonde in comparison to them. The last one was dressed with very nice clothes, the kind nobility wear, and was saying something about Harry Potter and introducing himself to my new friend.

He was so cute that for a second I didn't realize who he was: Draco Malfoy, poster boy for the Dark side, the one brough up by his parents to believe... that at his very core, didn't want any of it.

I couldn't help it, I gasped, and he, probably thinking I was making fun of his name, started berating me. I did the only thing I thought them.

"No, no! It's just, your hair is so _shiny_, and your eyes so pretty I just thought you were an angel". Yeah. That was the first thing I said to him. Go, me.

On the upside, that shut him up completely while a blush made itself known on his cheekbones and the silence installed comfortably on the compartment.

"Now that you say it, Ro, you have a point", Harry agreed with me. "The reverend at the church my relatives go always says that 'angels are one of the creatures loved by God who embodiment the beauty and the kindness of the Lord, always watching us from the heavens and taking care of us'". Go, Harry! I could see how his words were affecting the little Malfoy, who looked just that bit pleased despite everything.

"I know" I answered with a smug face while standing up. "Merry meet, Heir Malfoy" I bowed my head briefly; even if I wasn't from a Noble House, mine was still Ancient, and House Malfoy and House Weasley still had a feud. "I, Ronald Weasley, introduce you to my friend Heir Potter, Harry Potter".

Surprised, Malfoy watched me making good use of my Great-Aunt's teachings. That had the effect of subduing him a little, undoubtely curious as to my clothes -new and of good quality- and my manners, which someone like me -born a bloodtraitor- shoudn't have. I could see him running by all the known facts that he had of me and discard them, and I was pleased to know that indeed having respect for the manners and traditions of the pureblood crowd would help me.

"Merry Meet, Weasley" he answered extending his hand towards me. "It is quite curious to meet one of you who takes care of following our traditions. An unexpected surprise" he commented neutrally.

I shaked his hand before keep talking. "My family and I do indeed welcome muggleborns to our world, but I believe that protecting our traditions which were a legacy of our ancestors is needed. 'Magic is Might', but there's been a lot of time since performing the Rites to show Her our gratefulness was allowed".

He directed me one last look before shaking Harry's hand; my friend was looking at us gobsmacked, I pressume, for our way with the words. Or, perhaps, it was because of the theme we were talking about. Whatever it was, after Malfoy dissmised his henchmen -Crabbe and Goyle were they called- and sat with us on the compartment, Harry could't wait more and asked us what were we talking about.

I let Malfoy explain about the Olde Ways, and the many different kind of magic that had been abolished by our Light-oriented Ministry, and made my own opinion of muggleborns be known - probably they were the descendency of squibs cast off the Wizarding World and therefore sons of Magic too. That make Malfoy actually stop his rant, specially after I told them than the youngest daughter of my squib uncle had magic despite the rest of her siblings being squibs too.

It was then, during that moment of stillness of Malfoy, that a girl entered our compartment, looking for a toad named Trevor.

It was at this point in life that I thought I had altered too much. My cousin was always saying that despite being redeemed, during the firsts years Malfoy had been a little shit. He had yet to be after I interrupted him by calling him pretty, so maybe he had only wanted attention in any kind of way he could get it. And that was simply not nice in my eyes.

The thing is, Malfoy was actually _well-behaved_ with someone I know he called mudblood infinity of times. There was no way a few hours of conversation could change that so... completely.

But lo and behold, so it seemed.

It was weird in a strange way. Me knowing all of this should be different but at the same time I was enjoying it.

What was weird too was our Sorting. Granger went to Gryffindor, but she was the only one. Malfoy, Harry and -to the surprise of my brothers- me all went to Slytherin, and I know for real that Harry and I shocked everyone at the Great Hall.

But anyways, how our adventure to defeat Lord Voldemort came to pass because of all the differences I made is a story for another day.


	2. Seventh Year - I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. This chapter has been the one coming back into my thoughts since the beginning of summer. Not to say it hasn't changed through the time, it has, what with this scene on repeat every other week even when I was at work.
> 
> The circumstances, the people involved, the reasons, the way to travel, had all shifted through many options.
> 
> To be truthful, at first Ro wasn't even Ro, but the original Ron. However, once I wrote the summary -a bout of inspiration much like the prompts, just longer- I was convinced that it would be perfect to combine the two.
> 
> Remember when at the very beginning I said something like "if my muse is well-behaved"? To this I was referring to back then, to be able to reach this particular point in the narrative.

Most of the castle was empty of people, having sent the rest of the students out of the school using Arianna's secret way out to the Hog's Head. Leaded by Neville Longbottom, Blaise Zabini and professor Sprout, they could at least hope to give them time enough to scape the anti-apparition wards and make a run for it.

They were a little group of six teens looking almost desperately the Marauders' Map, watching names of several Death Eaters dissapear from its pages as they were falling prey to the twins' mortal traps. Hogwarts herself seemed to collaborate with them in the labour of defeating Voldemort's forces inside the castle.

One of the red-heads was running an interesting commentary about several strategies they should aply depending on how many of their enemies got to reach the part they were in – the Great Hall, and also the destination they were conducing the dark wixen to.

They had a plan with as many contingency meassures as they could imagine, but for the one that actually happened, surprising them all.

It all happened too fast; one could arguably say that it happened all at the same time.

One of them, the one with the crazy black hair, was folding up the Map when suddenly the crack of Apparition resounded in the Hall. A baby no more than a year old had appeared in front of them, his hair slowly changing its colour. The only girl of the group took him in her arms, looking worried at her best friend. "Cover him" ordered him while pasing her an old cloak.

The other thing that happened at the same time was Hogwarts, which trembled with great power. "Apparition at Hogwarts? The wards are totally shot down" was said together with a worried "Shit! Snape's doing it now, guys!"

"Change of plans! We have to take them down now!"

As the castle itself trembled, one of the red-heads, the same one that had talked last, realised how their surroundings were changing slowly. The Great Hall they were originally in had no more lights than the lumos conjured by their blond friend. However the parts they were not standing in were starting to have intense light, the kind it had had when they had been there as students dining at their tables. Weird people-shapes started to shadow those spaces and though it was still too weak for them to hear, a soft murmur of conversations was starting to form around them.

However, it was then than the last two Death Eaters at the school entered the Great Hall. Tall and too proud, Fenrir Greyback had his mouth open in an intimidatorial grin, while a snarl sullied Bellatrix' face. Both appeared just that bit singed, with smoke slowly ascending from their clothes, to present a mighty entrance, but their fury made for it powering her spells and his attacks.

The red-heads tacked the werewolf, having a debt to settle with him since it was the savage dark creature the one who horribly murdered their older brother, Bill Weasley. The other three had a pendant account with the witch, seeing it was her who killed one's godfather, had given an undeleble scar to the girl and was the other's aunt, responsible for killing off his mother.

Dark jinxes and stunners flied from the wands, but for all their superiority in numbers the young adults weren't having it easier to defeat their foes. At least not, until a _Sectumsempra_ severed the witch from her right hip to her left shoulder, letting the black-haired guy trap her in an _Incarcerous_. "Headmaster Snape taught us rather well, Bellatrix!" tainted the girl, her short brown hair falling wildly around her face. While she was the one responsible for the older witch's injury, the Madam Lestrange directed her words towards her best friend. "Itty bitty Potty, always the coward!" laughed. "Who killed Sirius Black? I did! And I enjoyed it!" A despective sneer married her expression. "And yet you are unable to do what you must, filthy half-blood. Enjoy your last moments until my Lord claim Hogwarts!"

While the captured woman spewed her venom, the three siblings were gaining over the werewolf, greatly thanks to the muggle contraptions adquired by the youngest: several guns of different kinds, all of them loaded with silver bullets.

Around them, the Great Hall was clearer every second; had any of them looked at their backs they would have noticed the noticeable group of people who were advancing in their direction, maybe even noticed their collective flinch once the bullets started to shower the werewolf's body, whose painful howls were starting to shook the Hall.

"This is for Bill!" snarled one of the two identical twins, the one without an ear. "And this one for Lupin!" exclaimed the other one putting a bullet through the creature's head. Hard breaths filled the space between them while one of them emptied his gun on the death body, just in case and maybe a bit out of hatred.

An instant of silence while the siblings made their way towards their friends, alert but uncaring of the people that hadn't been before at the place. "I may be unable to put you under the Cruciatus, or send a real Killing Curse at you, but I'll sure enjoy putting you down as the beast that you are", growled the black-haired one. One of the red-heads lent him an unused gun that he started to load while still talking. "This little thing in my hands is a pretty interesting muggle invention which works wonders around magic". Taking the lock off the weapon he fired towards her stomach. "You know, is really shitty that my godson will have to live without his parents because of your blood purist beliefs". Two more shots, one on her right leg and the other on her wand hand. "Getting to see you die slowly a muggle death should be enough for me just for that", the next one perfored her under the collarbone. Only the _Silencio_ performed on her by her nephew prevented them of hearing her screaming rage. "However" said after looking their surroundings. At least two of the adults were ready to stop him on his vengueance, "I don't need revenge as much as to give you a chance to run away from this". That said the rest of the bullets opened in and out holes on her skull, effectively confirming her death. "That's for Sirius".

Stillness had dominated the Hall since the people around the newcomers had been able to watch and hear them, and that tenseness still hadn't been broken. Not, until the blonde one casted an _Incendio_ to burn off the bodies. Until that moment, even the teachers who had tried to reach and stop them had been too shocked by the actions of that group to do more than watch in something akin to fear the actions in front of them.

It wasn't pretty, not when the people of the group turned in their direction. Despite the wounds and their behaviour, it was clear they were all young, perhaps of the age of their Seventh Years, and what they had just done had only brought the brewing war outside of Hogwarts within their walls.

Dumbledore cracked his spine still while observing attentively the unknown people that had just arrived at his school. All of them were so devastatingly young it almost pained him to see what they had to resolve to do, fighting against foes far older than them. That was the direction Wizarding Britain was heading up to.

None of them but the blonde one wore the Hogwarts' uniform, and his wasn't in its best condition, being almost impossible to recognize him as a Slytherin's student.

"Good evening. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has the dubious honour of welcoming you to the new year of scholarization. I am the Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. May I inquire as to your names?" After crosing a few looks, the girl uncovered the baby and put him in his godfather's arms.

"Good Evening, Professor. My name is Hermione Granger and these are my friends Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ron, Fred and George Weasley" introduced her while signaling towards each one. "We were sent by our current Headmaster with the usage of one of the Olde Spells devised by previous Headmasters".

That gave Dumbledore pause. Each Headmaster could add any spell or charm they thought could be of use to protect Hogwarts and its students' integrity. Only the legitimate Headmaster of the school could read the manuscript and consequently make use of the spells. Lately he had been perusing it, trying to discover something useful to the cause of defeating Lord Voldemort, and perhaps the situation those newcomers were in coincided with one of the spells he had read.

"If you would, I'd like to invite you to my office to discuss this more deeply. I'll call for a refrigery, I'm sure you'd all like to have at least some tea". The smiles the group sent his way and the easy acceptance told him they must have met him in their previous years.

Once they all arrived to the Headmaster's office, Harry and company kept their silence, looking at each other with certain worry. Despite Snape's idea, they hadn't had enough time to formulate a plan, at the very least deciding how much information they would reveal to Dumbledore. Being able to evacuate all the other students and kill the Death Eaters before they could travel back ready to assist their Lord had been far more important at the time.

Cautiously, checking for veritaserum and poisons, they accepted the tea and pastries offered by the old man, who chose to wait in silence for them to talk, able to see they needed a moment to recompose themselves before being able to function beyond the instint to survive.

None of them wanted to talk too much, not really trusting him after everything, but they did reveal they were from several decades on the future. They also admitted that none of them had completed their Seventh Year, where Dumbledore would let them integrate themselves at the school. They did have a brief confrontation with him when Harry outright refused his ofert of letting the baby live with a set of parents out of the school, Draco and Ro backing him up with the twins ready to get out of Hogwarts again in order to raise Teddy themselves.

In the end they reached an agreement in which they would complete their last year at Hogwarts and decided that the best way to introduce themselves before the other students at Hogwarts was giving them a part of the truth. After all, those Olde Spells had been aproved in the past by the Unspeakables, so they could talk about their non-belonging to the time freely.

Also, they would have to be sorted before the dinner ended, so as to allow the castle's magic to create the appropiate beds for them to sleep in.

It was disstressing in some kind of way, how they had to walk followed by the atent eyes of the school in its completion, murmurs relating once again their actions and wondering about their singled aspect.

It was Dumbledore himself who spoke aloud their names after explaining the other students a brief summary of their circumstances, going back to Gryffindor the one they had heard speaking before, Granger. However, despite the claps she didn't went to sit at the table inmediatly, waiting instead for the rest of her companions. The next one to be sorted was the Malfoy, looked at by one Sirius Black with curiousity. After all, thanks to his animagus' senses he had heard them all speaking, and it was possible that that 'Sirius' mentioned by his best mate's clone was he himself, and if the Malfoy was with them, he couldn't be as bad as the rest of the family. Yet his expectations were crushed the moment he was pronounced “Slytherin” without doubt from the Sorting Hat.

The Potter was almost a hatstall, going in the end to Gryffindor as was always going to be, taking in his hands the baby who -holy shit!- had just changed his hair to match his. Between the girl and the Malfoy he started clapping as one of the twins, the one with both ears, got into the Lion House too. Surprisingly, the others ended in Slytherin, much to the surprise and dismay of anyone else but their little group of time travellers.

It was only as the last one was sorted that they walked towards the entrance of the Great Hall, still as a tight group, getting out of the Great Hall. That was that, not socializing, not looking around for the other students, not interest at least in knowing how to enter their Common Rooms. That was a great mystery and if it wasn't for his very obvious animagus form he would be the one following them right now. However, Wormy hadn't wanted to, hungry and far more interested in the food than in the newcomers.

Crossing looks, Prongs and him stuffed themselves as fast as they could, wanting to check the Map.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I'm not done yet. There's still a bit more to this story, now that we're here.
> 
> Good evening! ^u^


	3. Seventh Year - Remus' opinion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now that my father figure has taught me how to share data between my phone and my tablet through the USB, get ready to receive all the chapters I've been writing this past week. Some of the author notes belong to those days, but who cares?

If Remus had to say something aloud about the unexpected newcomers, that would be about their auras, the air they carried themselves with. Not dignified, not elegant, but mature, grown up. They were very serious, both with their studies and the other classmates. How were them when not in public he couldn't even start to fathom it, since they made a habit of meeting out of curious eyes and ears.

Not even the Marauders could follow them with their map if they didn't wanted to be pursued, which had only spooked more Prongs and Padfoot's competitiveness.

Also, in the two weeks they had been sharing a room with the Potter -Harry- and the Weasley twin, he still hadn't see them laugh. Not even a little smile when seeing Sirius make an arse of himself. At most, whistful faces and sad looks before reigning on their expression once more.

The girl, Granger, was fearsome, firing off answers at the speed of light and with a rightful attitude whenever she saw them pranking a Slytherin, going so far as to take points from Gryffindor. And while she shouldn't be able to, the point meter's followed her commands. The Marauders learnt to take her seriously.

The twins and her could be seen together many times a day, even if listening to them was impossible. They appeared to be developing things, experimenting with potions. And, strangely, they would never be caught by their pranks.

The Potter would look at them from time to time, but didn't initiate contact and actually tended to run away the moment he saw them getting closer to him, going so far as to go eat at the Slytherin table. And while the majority of its people would look at him like dirt beneath their shoes, the Malfoy and the Weasleys welcomed him always with open arms, acting as if they had been friends since forever.

They were a tight-nip group which didn't accept outsiders; of the baby they had only seen snippets, always with one person or the other. The moment they were with him was when they appeared to be at their happiest. At the very least, at their calmest.

So actually, there was a lot Remus could say about them. However, that impasse wouldn't last long, broken in September 19th when those of them who sat at Slytherin came at breakfast to their table, setting off fireworks. “Happy Birthday, Mione!” they shouted, trying to form big smiles. It wasn't easy, to be happy, when they had to left behind everyone they loved that were still alive. And even if they had come back in time on the off-chance to never let the dead be murdered again, getting up wasn't as simple.

But they were trying, meeting to plan how to kill Snake-lord, developing products, strategies, reminding each one that they weren't alone. And Hermione could see it when they sang her the birthday song, and couldn't help crying while cuddling to them.

Publicly that was the first time they saw the time travellers affected by their situation, and they saw them come up stronger for it. With three new people sat at the red table they saw for the first time real smiles on their faces, were privy to the easy friendship they had, heard some inside jokes.

The Malfoy and her started a dialogue about potions and how to improve them, the twins commenting on it from time to time but far more interested in making faces at the baby. The Potter and the other red-head spoke rapidly, cutting each other's sentences, until the moment when they turned to see the Black and the other Potter.

“Harry here misses Quidditch. Would you like to play a game?” asked the snake before the black-haired could stop him. “I love him to pieces, but he's still reuniting the courage to talk to you and I don't want to spend another week with him whining about the sport and our non-existent adversaries”.

And usually, Sirius would have cut him off, not ashamed to behave badly with a Slytherin, but James answered first, looking forward to the very first interaction between him and the new Potter. One way or another, it was undoubtedly a descendant of his, and he'd like to befriend him. So him and the long red-haired Weasley planned for a Quidditch game next weekend.


	4. Seventh Year - II

After the bird's birthday it seemed like the group of time-travellers had relaxed themselves a little bit. Their Potter would happily chat with them about Quidditch and the classes, even if he still kept quiet about the relationship he had had with them back on his own timeline. The Malfoy would spent many meals besides him and that other red-head, the tallest one, speaking the three together as if they had been friends forever, sometimes sending daring looks to the twins while the girl wasn't looking.

And that was great, truly, but Sirius was far more interested in what they had lived before coming here. They obviously must had a past together, the familiarity between them couldn't be possible otherwise, but had spoken no word about it. At least, not where he or his friends could hear.

However, they had tells. Like in DADA, when practicing dueling, and the way they angled their bodies. The ease they faced each other with and the trust when put together in pairs to defeat another. The way they answered when asked, which could denote in-dept knowledge of the consequences of the spell or curse studied.

The Malfoy was pretty interesting in his opinion, one of the two social butterflies in their group, serious and well-disciplined but able to cheer as loud as the Weasleys for the birthday of the girl. He had rised as one of the best students of their year, yet played a mean game on the pitch, as competitive as the rest. Raised as Heir to his House but willing to discuss about whatever with the muggleborn. And together with the no-twin Slytherin Weasley, the one Harry Potter spent most of his time with.

Back to the first time Sirius had seen them, September first, looking at the Malfoy had been a bit like looking into a mirror: that odd person of the group, the undiscutible pureblood, surrounded by friends that surely his parents dissaproved of, yet fighting besides them. He still thought that nowadays, looking at him when the blonde sat at the Gryffindor table shamelessly, swiftly inserting himself in the ongoing conversation.

But he had gone into the snakes' House, and that gave Sirius grounds to be suspicious of him and his attitude, even when the other Potter trusted him implicitly, when the lions of their group were as friendly towards him and the other two as they were towards him and the other Marauders.

Many evenings had he spent following his steps on the Map, wary of whatever plans he could concoct. September 23rd was the first day he went looking for him, having read his name and that of Ronald Weasley near his younger brother's.

What had he expected from that meeting, he didn't know at the moment, but hiding himself under Prongs' Cloak, he was privy to the chat Reggie and the Malfoy had that day.

With a blink Ro batted aside her irritation, spurned by watching the arrogant attitude of every Slytherin in the Common Room.

A big part were prejudiced little shits in her opinion, wanting to belittle her, her brother and Draco just for the friends they had. At the same time, dueling them wasn't as interesting, since the time travelers could kick their asses easily. But listening to them going on repeat about the same thing was boring at the very least, and put her in a foul mood in days like these.

Days when the nightmares about battles showed her instead the faces of those who had died for rebelling against their parents' beliefs. Of those she had left behind to keep fighting their fight, the one she had given a begining with her actions. Anyone could say whatever, but Ro _knew_ with every fiber in her bones that all the deaths were her responsability. If she hadn't just been herself everything could have played just like in the films and then Bill and Ginny wouldn't be dead.

Percy wouldn't have been blown up to dust along with the people in the Ministry of Magic. The twins would have had their joke shop instead of the bastardized version of it in the way of things to make killing easier. Everything had gone to shit because of who she was, how she thought, acted and had influenced the people around her.

She knew her friends didn't blame her for it, but it wasn't enough when she did so. Her fault, her guilt to bear.

Had she been who she was Before, this would be the time to fall in bed and not come out for a long time, letting her feelings drown her and cripple her once again. She had done so many times in the past, refusing to see beyond the bad that ocurred because of her thoughtless actions. But now, she didn't have that luxury.

Snape had chosen her, among the rest of the students, to lead them to a new future. She had come back, irreparably straying away from canon. There were five other young adults and a fucking baby who depended on her. She couldn't crush and burn, not now.

So Ro closed her eyes, a sneer crossing her face when looking at the naïve teens in front of her eyes, whom had yet to _see_ a real battle, much less participating in one. The racist shit they were spouting had no head nor tail, but she refused to make them change their ways. She had done so once, and in the end they had ended far worse. Once they defeated Snake-lord -_she would do _whatever_ in order to kill that monster_\- hopefully they would meet the consequences of their actions, or learn to think otherwise. Anyway it wouldn't be her responsability. She had already enough on her plate.

Someone briefly rubbed one shoulder to hers; Draco was besides her, and doubtlessly he had noticed her rising ire, despite her blank face. Draco. At least one of the people whose thinking she had changed was still here, as strong as ever.

He had come a long way since that night he ran away from the Manor, casting aside his inheritance, his birthrights, his family, just to follow an ideal. To keep believing that the muggleborns were right to come into Wizarding Britain, to not bow to a madman, to support his friends. True, he had sobbed many nights after leaving behind his mother, who hadn't wanted to follow him. He had cried when treating Greg's wounds after the other teen had escaped his parents' townhouse. Once they knew about Tracy he had spent hours cursing every dummy at the Room of Requirement to high hell.

But after all that, after uncountable nights coming to share her bed in tears, he was still besides her, able to smile, able to keep going. Draco had been the best prepared out of them all to travel back in time, along with Hermione. Food, potions, salves, _documents to validate their identities_, money in spades, among other things. Since re-entering Hogwarts as students he had become her rock.

It wasn't like she didn't trust George; Fred and him had always, _always_ done their level best to support her. But it would be weird to tell him about her self-recriminations. Not because he was the supposedly older, but because she had used to tell Percy those things, and Percy wasn't there. Telling Draco could be like an exchange, since he had always been the kind to fault himself when it came to the important things, and she had been there for him in those instances.

And while she trusted George, he wasn't as proficient at reading her when blank faced, not having grown besides her in the snakes' pit the past years. Now that he was in Slytherin with them instead of Harry, it was like being with one less foot when before she and Draco would flank Harry, and viceversa. But he tried, even when it was obvious he had been raised a Gryffindor, and she couldn't, wouldn't ask more of him, not when he had already given her his everything. The only thing left for her to do was to support him in turn, teach him the ways of their House and be at his back for when he needed her.

That mentality didn't lend itself to make her lean more on her brother.

But going back to the here and now, Ro felt grounded once more after Draco's show of support. “You finished already?” she wondered, interrupting whoever was talking now. It was rude, nothing like her smooth ways back in the years, but it wasn't like she was interested in charming them. Things would have been different if they were headed to a political battle, but nothing more far from it.

Hopefully it wouldn't be as openly destructive as before, but she was convinced she would cross wands with them or their families in a duel before she would in a court, and considering how willingly blind they were, she hadn't the time nor the disposition to play nice. One way or another they would wound up dead, probably.*

Draco looked at her, and probably understood her in a second, as he sent a sneer towards the group in front of them. “We can understand if you have no social life to speak of outside these walls, but never in my life have I stopped of doing what I desired, and I'm not going to start now because of people like you” commented him with a velvety voice, wielding a sharp smile. “Whatever you think it's of no importance to my friends and myself, so simply shut it. Otherwise it'd be a waste of your spit and, more importantly, our time”.

Outraged silence invaded the Common Room. Not many of them had ever been so disrespected in their whole lives; raised by pureblood parents to mingle with a pureblood crowd, there wasn't many chances for them to experiment such _faux pas_, especially when it was everything but unintended. See, hear, and keep quiet until the moment the information they had was useful were a few of the philosophies they all shared. Keep the politesse even to your adversaries, though snub them subtly.

This wasn't like that, this was an action typical of a Gryffindor, yet delivered with the fine words of a Slytherin. It was insulting, maddening and infuriating. And it only kept getting worse, since getting back at them was extremely complicated, be at classes or out of them. Any of them were likely an old hand at duels, trying to trap them within the castle was useless, the traps and pranks _wouldn't_ work on them. They couldn't even enact revenge on their lions, who were as adept at jinxing their enemies as them. They simply could take that insult lying down.

The blonde got out of the Common Room, flanked by the red-heads and not even looking back at them, silently telling them that they didn't register ever as threats.

Regulus had been on the Common Room when that had happened, and while part of him was horrified at them and their actions, there was other, the younger brother of one Sirius Black, who found it kind of awesome.

That Malfoy had certain bone structure that reminded him of Cissy. The shape of his chin, his delicate nose and his gray eyes belonged to Black blood. Plus, Cissy had married Heir Malfoy last year, and if the time-traveller Malfoy wasn't their son he would publicly admit he still loved Sirius.

The younger Black looked at that blonde snake and saw what his brother could have been in Slytherin: cutting, powerful, ruthless. Just like that Malfoy had just done, he wouldn't bow once towards anyone, instead tearing them down until he was left alone.

Regulus was many things, not the least of all, awestruck with the rising Dark Lord whom preached a coming back to the Olde Ways, a Pureblood rising instead of pleasing every whine from uneducated muggleborns. But he wasn't blind. He saw the Malfoy and one of the Weasleys, the one with both ears, celebrating Old Rites, using the proper manners when greeting others outside the House, and he couldn't help but think about it.

They hadn't make a secret of the hatred they felt for the Dark Lord, not ever. However, they respected the traditions, the culture. He knows that the girl, miss Granger, is muggleborn, but wouldn't have realized it looking only at her and her manners. They were doing part of what he thought would be the Dark Lord's doing, yet were utterly against him.

They were really interesting, despite their political views. That thought was the one to make him follow the trio discreetly, wanting to speak to them without other people around them.

Since losing his left ear, George had grown used to listen more things. It wasn't like his hearing had improved, or as if any of his senses was suddenly better developed than before; it simply happened that people were just a tad more careless when talking around him. Impaired hearing and the visible lack of an ear suddenly made people to look down on him, not thinking him to be able to blast them off to next thursday, or to attentively listen to the world surrounding him.

And in the several months since his loss, George had learnt to play with it to his advance. That had been the fact to grant him entrance to the snakes' pit, wanting to protect Ro now that Harry would be in Gryffindor. The new awareness of his surroundings was what made him notice their solitary tail a moment before Draco.

George hadn't been privy to all the information; he didn't know about Sirius' younger brother, and Ro hadn't told anyone about his involvement in the first war against Voldemort besides Lord Black. He only saw one snake poised to attack and struck in consequence, restraining him against the wall. “What do you want?” he asked harshly.

“Don't worry about him, George” told him Ro. “Precisely him could end being helpful to us” commented firmly. At the curious look from Draco, she spoke one word. “Kreacher” she said, simply as an answer; the elf hadn't travelled with them and she wasn't expecting their bond to be still active, however the creature answered the comand promtply, appearing besides them. “Mistress Ro called?”

It was obvious his presence was unexpected, but the wrinkled creature only had to look around to understand the severity of the situation: Master Regulus, the kindest wizard ever, was in front of him, younger than the last time he could assist him. “Master Regulus” breathed the elf, blinking once before looking at his Mistress in wonder.

“Kreacher?”, Regulus' voice showed his perplexion, and also his worry at seeing his oldest, dearest friend so banged and aged up. However, then another pop of apparition was heard, and the Kreacher he knew, better off than this one, showed up also. No initial unraveling of the universe, no disaster in sight was there to doom them all, making Ro sigh after a minute.

“Draco, speak with him if you want; he's your cousin after all. If he's still interested I'll talk to him later. Maybe tomorrow; right now I just want to clear my head before facing this” she made a gesture with her hand, directing the attention towards the two Kreachers present.

Draco nodded decisively, watching her and her brother go to the kitchens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to remark that everybody reacts differently to things, and after a year of facing against Death Eaters in kill or be killed situations, Ro is far less squeamish about certain things than other people.
> 
> She already has had her breakdown about the morality of killing other people, when those are enemies that want to kill her and her family, and counteracted it by being a world of fiction, that nonetheless I'm not portraying. At least not right now, I wouldn't know how to do right by something so trascendental.
> 
> As previously established, had she been Before her reincarnation, she would've gone inactive, just like in her first years after realizing who she was. However, since realizing what had happened to her and where she was, after those first years of depression she resolved to stand up, forcing herself to do it. Right now I picture her to be a high-functioning depressive girl who has recently buried a great part of her new family, a big number of the friends she made and also had to left behind most of the people still alive to have a shot in the dark with this chance. Add to that the guilt of knowing that if she wasn't herself but Ron, many of those things wouldn't have happened and that she is the designated leader of the group, and you have someone that is desperate to succeed and cut losses as much as she can. Right now she's overwhelmed, wanting to keep the others in the group safe and sound, and wanting to kill Voldemort so she can be sure he won't come back. Those circumstances simply aren't the best for her to really connect -or want to try- to people outside of her circle, much less to be emphatic towards people who are being led by their nose by their prejudices.
> 
> It's important to know, this doesn't have to be accurate when in relation to other people and their experiences.


	5. Seventh Year - III

Lily wasn't having a good month. How could her, when her good intentions were refuted at every turn?

Hermione Granger was a girl with as much character as herself, as headstrong as herself and totally uninterested in joining the other group of girls in Gryffindor.

It had all started when Lily and Mary tried to steer her far from the Slytherins, especially those three whom had travelled back in time. They were snakes, and after Severus, she didn't want to see another person being let down in their friendship with those sneaky, self-servant collective. However, the bushy-haired girl had laughed in the face of their efforts, ignoring them and going straight to the blonde one.

Not only that, but had informed the others in her group of it, and both the twin and especially the Potter had proceeded to pretend she wasn't in the room. The Weasley she could understand, since two of the snakes were his family, but the Potter? Maybe he was weird like that; during the last month he had avoided the Marauders as much as he could, only to turn around now in October to be cordial and talk about classes and that stupid sport.

A little, very little part of her did know that part of her conflict with that situation was the relationship the time-travellers had with each other. They were much more better friends than she and Snape had ever been once they entered Hogwarts. And, differently to herself, were able to coordinate their time to interact with other people, in a fashion.

Of the Gryffindors, it was Granger the one who went out of her way to talk with other students, the one who helped others with things they had difficulties with, and was far better than Lily to do it, as if used to tutor other people. She wasn't deterred by other Houses, and in that, also, was she alike to herself. However, it seemed like people looked up to her just a bit more than Lily, even when she was Head Girl.

Maybe it had been because of how they had arrived, knee-deep into a battle from which they walked away the victors, but the aura of no-nonsense they all had around went a long way into gaining the respect of the rest of the school. Perhaps were also the ghosts; even Peeves treated them with far more seriousness than he did any teacher, listening to their requests with nary a protest.

However, despite grafting herself deeply into other Houses' matters and interacting more with people out of Gryffindor, the brown-haired girl always made time to be with the other time-travellers, had projects with them and defended them imperiously against anyone who spoke bad of them.

If Lily had been one or two years younger, maybe she'd had refused to see this truth, but she couldn't deny now that along the years, _ she _ hadn't wanted to make time for Severus. Had wanted to distance herself of him, since he wasn't as good as to be considered worthwile for the rest of her friends. He wasn't pretty or handsome, so her girl friends didn't wanted him near, and he was acid and sarcastic, so her boy friends ended with their egos brushed. He was abrasive and called her out whenever she had a fault, even if he was softer with her in comparison than to other people.

And for every time she hadn't met with him, he had integrated himself with his House, polishing his harsh ways in their care, and somehow along the way, that had been celebrated. His intellect, his sharp tongue, his prowess with the Dark Arts. Not his friendship with a mudblood.

In the end, it was better for them to have ended that relationship. She was tired of trying to half-heartedly defend him from her friends, and he could have better rapport with his House full of heartless people just like he had ended himself.

But the arrival of Granger and her antics with the Malfoy and the Weasleys only served to remind her of the bad friend she had been. Of a lost chance that she never realized. And while she could live with herself knowing she has lost her first friend in the wizarding world, knowing she really didn't care as much for him as she would have if she had been a better person, that didn't mean she wanted to have that fact rubbed into her face every day.

Peter was used to be observed as a snack by many people. Not because of his attractive looks, mind you, but because a short, slightly pudgy-looking boy made for the perfect target to bully. Luckily he had shared the dorm with the Marauders, as he was awfully conscious of how habitual a mark of them he could have become.

Remus was like him in that sense; the studious boy had always had present just how lucky he was to be an integrant of the Marauders. People like them, quiet, not as attractive, shy in comparison to James and Sirius, would have been targeted in seconds by their viciousness. Even if Pads and Prongs weren't bad people.

It was easier to go along with their ideas, easier to not oppose them once they selected their target. Better that other person than him, truthfully. Better to keep being on their good side, so his school life wouldn't turn awful.

Now however, Pettigrew was alone, surrounded by Slytherins. He was on his own, and they were all attacking him, and saying things he was too scared to comprehend at the moment.

In any other world, this would be the beginning of Peter Pettigrew's turning on his friends. Scared and surrounded by enemies, any person who wanted to keep living would do whatever was needed to survive. To turn those targeting him onto other people. Would want to have a reason for them to leave him alone.

He wouldn't have done it that day, nor that year. But if offered to be left alone? If outright told of the ways He could make his death hideously painful? If bargaining his life on the line against the protection received?

Peter wasn't a strong-willed boy, and defensive spells weren't his forte. And while he admired James, that didn't mean he couldn't also have a healthy fear of his actions turned against him, always walking the fine edge of not being sure himself of his place besides people like the Potter Heir and someone as vicious as Sirius Black, who had sent Snape towards Moony _ knowingly _.

But Ro Weasley was there.

She was a time-traveller, a dimension-hopper, and a thinker. She was burnt, because of the situation she and her friends were in; because of the Slytherins in this time and their stupidity; because of the responsibilities shoved onto her shoulders.

She found bullies distasteful, had a knack to spot the underdog and tended to find difficult not to help that kind of people. It had been that way even Before, it was inherent of her to want to help. And while she didn't want to ever _ try _ to change the snakes in her year, opposing them was one of the few entertainments she indulged in nowadays.

She didn't know it was Pettigrew she was rescuing this time. She didn't know that by doing that she was, once again, changing the path they would follow, but she knew the fear in his eyes. Knew also the surprise, the thankfulness.

And she was tired enough not to fight his attachment.

The arrival of the time-travellers had shaken up many people that year, but the Marauders felt it especially. James was always hanging up with Harry, whom he thought of as a younger brother. Sirius was usually with them, but he was more quiet than ever, silently observing the Malfoy besides the Potter. Remus was as studious as ever, and used as he was to be the middle friend between Lily and James, now that role fell between her and Hermione, who was as sweet to him as to the rest of her friends. In fact, the time-travellers all went out of their ways to be nice to him, to give him chocolate. He was also the only one they trusted to spent time with the baby. Pettigrew looked for the tallest Weasley any time he could, and was being tutored by him. That in turn put him in the way to be better acquainted with the other time-travellers who were also pretty nice to him.*

That status quo was slightly broken after Sirius went to meet privately with the Malfoy on his own birthday, November 3rd. Whatever they told each other made the Black change the eyes he observed the Slytherins with, concretely, the Malfoy and the Weasleys.

From then on, getting the time-travellers to talk about their previous lives was a bit easier, depending on the person you asked to. The twins were more relaxed about it, maybe because they were older. Ro straight up ignored the questions, running away from then as much as he could. Usually Granger was easy to talk to, though she had certain themes which made her clam up. The Malfoy was tight-lipped when in public, but would make time to speak with Sirius and relate what he could.

It was that way that Sirius was the first of the Marauders who knew of Harry being originally a snake, but also that he had been muggle-raised, starved and abused by his only left family, and how Malfoy -_Draco_\- and two other snakes had found it and proceeded to invite him to their houses every summer.

That draw a parallel between him and the green-eyed Potter, but soon enough Draco would told him about Ro's gender self-identification and the problems she had faced against her parents, first because of being Slytherin and after that due to her feminine preferences. He spoke to the Black about long conversations with the red-head, about discoveries he had been doing on his father, the little black journal. Nott senior's dark mark, the Dark Fucker's return.

But also, he told him of their snakes. Blaise and the ease he had to weave protective wards. Theo teaching Harry Occlumency to guard his mind. Pansy who cut off any rumour that could have hurt Ro. Greg and Vincent and Tracy and Daphne, and the ways all of them had helped Harry one way or another, how they had tried their best to put a stopper into the plans of the Dark Fucker.

Those conversations had place during the next months, being near Christmas when he admitted to their shortcomings; his running away of the Malfoy Manor, which tipped up the Dark side and ended being the cause of his friends' demise.

After all, Sirius was family now, and had been family then. He had been a grown-up very similar to a teen, so in the end there wasn't much difference to talk to him now, but for the fact that he hadn't step in Azkaban, which had tinted his view in a grim way.

Now he was as reckless as when he met him, but far more positive about the results. Or careless, if he were to be exact about it.

But Draco was, by a long mile, the most talkative about their past. There were other things no one spoke about, yet were already implicit. Harry, as an example, had never told any of them outright that he was James and Lily's son, however the dates matched. His second name, the eyes he shared with Evans.

Whom they never mentioned was their Headmaster. The enemies they had faced; they recounted the battles, the actions took by either side, but never giving names. Sirius could sense that the Potters had died all, yet no dates were given, no direct confirmation.

The future they came from seemed really bleak, whenever Draco painted him an image from that time.

It wasn't like the Marauders as a group had fragmented itself, they still spent a lot of time together. Yet, with the NEWTS on sight and their interesting visitors, it wasn't like they were in the middle of a prank spree every Thursday.

The time-travellers had helped put everything into perspective; many a night had Sirius shared with Prongs and the rest what Draco was telling him, with Fred and Harry there to confirm things, to give more details while the green-eyed rocked lightly the baby.

On the snakes' side, the Weasleys and the Malfoy tended to be persona non grata, yet they still had pull within their walls. How could they not, being as powerful as they were. It wasn't overly obvious, since many of their peers weren't interested in being singled out and attacked because of their relations, but their presence there was making waves.

Regulus Black was one of theirs, even Marked to Voldemort already. Kreacher, Ro's Kreacher, had told him everything he knew about the locket, that wasn't much in comparison to Ro, and his orders in the cave, and cruel Master Sirius who broke Mistress Walburga's heart and was imprisoned in Azkaban and reinstated as Heir before the Mistress died, years after her husband's and son's deaths. Therefore the young Heir was treading lightly on the Dark Lord's graces, wary of cousin Bellatrix whom killed his brother and was the one to also curse Cissy to death.

But the younger Black couldn't be found out by the Dark Lord and his cronies, and so avoided them as the pest, being the first turn-coat planted this time by Draco. The blonde had took upon his shoulders to try and recreate the net Ro had originated back in their days, knowing his friend wasn't with the strength needed to do it herself.

Other one they tried to discreetly court to their side was his godfather Severus, though that one was not an easy nut to crack. But it didn't matter; it wasn't like the net had to compose itself only of Slytherins.

As the other social butterfly of the group, Draco had come up with the idea of tutoring the younger students. Taking a page out of Lockhart's book, before the Christmas Holidays he asked for permission to open a DADA Club, and Dumbledore had granted it for it to start once they reached January.

However before that the holidays would have to happen, and as was their custom, the Potters had invited James' friends, extending this once invites to the seven time-travellers also, whom James and Sirius had wrote long about in their letters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Take into consideration that in this AU there never was that big reveal at the end of PoA, simply Ro sending the rat to the Ministry of Magic and cleaning her hands off that situation. Therefore, none of them have reasons to suspect Pettigrew of treason and Ro herself believes that nobody is inherently evil; if that was the case, she would have never bothered to steer the Slytherins into being better persons.


	6. Seventh Year - Visiting the Potters

Fleamont and Euphemia Potter were an older couple than what it was usual to see waiting at King Cross, since they were there as parents instead of grandparents. Not only that, for once Fleamont's younger brother was there with them and his wife to take the children back to the Manor together.

Though younger than Fleamont, Charlus and Dorea weren't parents themselves* and judging by Jamie's letters, they wouldn't have the chance to try. The youngest Potter had wrote his parents about the time-traveling Potter, Harry, and how he had grown among muggles and was known as the Last Potter back in his time.

Had boasted of the first time he saw him, his battle prowess, and his responsibility caring for a baby that was his godson, how protective he was of those precious to him, and how they had forsaken their families to come back in time to try and derail the approaching war.

And so, the Potters had wanted to meet that Potter, therefore inviting him and the ones that would be his chosen family.

The group wasn't aloof, happily chatting ones with the others, but it was obvious to Fleamont and Charlus once they saw them: they all walked with the same gait proper of Aurors, their eyes catalogued their surroundings looking for advantages and exits, the group were poised around the one with the baby, as if to be humans shields. Despite their seemingly happiness, they were attentive and cautious.

The people they had invited would very well be capable to protect themselves, and hopefully teach that to their youngest.

James' guests were many and interesting.

There was of course their Potter. Harry James was one quiet young man, whom preferred to keep to himself and his friends, observing their family from afar wistfully instead of treating with them more closely. He occupied most of his time caring for the baby metamorphomagus with dedicated fervor.

The Weasley siblings were a funny trio, as ingenious as James and his friends, but seemingly less mischievous. The twins were mostly on their own with a coded notebook and, from time to time, running ideas with the girl.

Hermione, as she had insisted in being called, was a bit like the mismatched one. She orbited around the twins and whatever they concocted, but also besides Harry and the other Weasley, as an emotional counterpart to them, the one the Potter spoke about his personal doubts, if Dania's words were to be believed, and mostly academic themes with the Malfoy.

That one shared the eyes of her brother Pollux, the exact shade she new his granddaughter Narcissa had inherited. The very same who married into the Malfoys last year and was currently trying to be with child, so Dorea could very well consider him family. Her great-grandnephew, specifically.

She was pretty interested in knowing which set of circumstances had brought them all together: the son of a Daughter of Black, the son of the current Heir Potter and a metamorphomagus, undoubtedly from the Black line too. That the Weasleys would be with them was only natural, as blood look out for theirs; the tallest one had the same eyes as one Arthur Weasley, and the twins shared his build, so the three of them were probably his sons. Arthur's mother was her cousin Cedrella, and even if she had died while giving birth to the twins Fabian and Gideon, Molly's mother was the daughter of cousin Arcturus, the current Lord Black.

The only one out of shared blood-relations was the girl, apparently a muggleborn, though her manners denoted some kind of pureblood education depending on the matter at hand.

However they were tight-lipped about the reasons their Headmaster had had to send them back to the past. At least to the adults, as if they weren't sure who could they trust. Like they were totally unknown to them.

The Potters weren't a big family, but they were warm, in comparison to the family Draco had had as his own. Not at the same level of Arthur and Molly of overbeariness, but more concerned with the state of James than his father ever was with his.

Nevertheless, Draco wasn't comfortable there. He felt observed, judged in some kind of way, and that spooked him. Ro didn't trust them outright, suspicious of their solicity. Not because they were to present them to the Snake-lord, but simply because they were unknown grown-ups.

That could mean a big range of things, not the last one a set of expectations suddenly thrust upon Harry's shoulders. As one who never had quite a family on his own, the most he could do had been living vicariously through his friends' experiences, not any of them easy. Hopefully, whatever the Potters were expecting of Harry would never amount to bow to a madman or having to deny himself.

The twins spent most of their time out in Hogsmeade, looking for an apartment they could rent for their group. None of them ever thought of asking Dumbledore to let them be at Hogwarts indefinitely, and wouldn't want to intrude on their families. Especially when the Malfoys were all but betrothed to the Dark Fucker and the Weasleys were already with several children and more on their way.

The Holidays ended being, not a tense affair, but not an easy one. Harry was far too squeamish around them, too nervous about meeting the family he never had; Draco distrusted the narrow looks mistress Dorea sent him and Hermione didn't want to impose too much. At least Ro was talking with Fleamont, wanting to know more about how real Aurors worked in order to asure their continued existence.

That holiday served instead another purpose: for the Potters to want to know them better. Not intending ever to abuse that trust, they accepted their offering of help -as an scholar, Euphemia had been interested in the olde spells of Hogwarts' Grimoire; surely they were in a dire situation for their Headmaster to send them all back- while Harry, still shy in person, started to send letters to his grandparents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Charlus and Dorea have officially a son, if I'm not mistaken. And if I remember correctly, I read somewhere that Charlus was younger than Fleamont, so what I'm doing here is having Dorea pregnant, but not knowing it yet.
> 
> By the way, Dania is how I've chosen to name Dorea's house elf.


	7. Seventh Year - IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise you, posting this one has been a mess and a half. This is like the sixth time or so that I get it into draft stage on AO3, thankfully this time it was saved before my conection went to hell again, so it'll be the last I post.
> 
> Today.

Once the New Year came, they started to get traction.

Draco and Hermione initiated their DADA Club for the weekends; the twins started the talks to acquire a flat for they seven thanks to the funds of the blonde; Harry was overcoming his nerves and insecurities regarding his family and Ro outlined a plan to prevent Voldemort's attacks.

It had been in great part thanks to Hermione, whom got as many newspapers from the past in the day she had since Snape informed her of the mission. The first step was find the Diadem, which Ro decided to do on her own once again. Once Kreacher located it, she went to test her new theory; it was terrifying. That it was possible, but also that it was possible for her to do it. To successfully cast an _ Avada Kedavra _.

She had even ran it first by Draco, by far the more attuned to Dark magic. He never felt anything from the artefact, and so she went to speak with Dumbledore. He didn't felt anything also.

“What is that you wanted to talk about, mister Weasley?” inquired the old wizard curiously, observing her sitting down with a pale face. She straightened her shoulders, drawing the courage to do what she went there for, before taking out the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw and presenting it to the headmaster.

“Do you feel anything wrong at all with it?” she asked. Intrigued, the wizard picked it up, running several spells through it, but finally conceded that no, nothing was amiss with that.

“The Dark Lord has made, along the years, several dark artefacts of great power which will prevent his death even if we were to kill him now” started the red-haired. “That diadem was one of his horcruxes” admitted the teen, motioning to the jewellery piece with a sight. “I had wanted to test a theory before delivering it, and was proved correct”.

“A theory?” pressed Dumbledore. “Horcruxes are a very Dark piece of soul magic. By cutting in half your soul during a Ritual, you can store one of the fragments inside any object at all, the nature of the magic making the chosen artifacts nearly indestructible by conventional methods”. What a strange situation, one in which it wasn't Dumbledore the one with all the answers and all the knowledge. “Fiendfyre and basilisk venom were the ones I knew of, back in my original time. Now I know that there is another method, safer depending on one's standards” briefly mused.

“May I ask?”. “No, you may not. With this I wanted to inform you that once the Order of the Phoenix goes active, it will be better if they show no pity towards the Death Eaters” answered Ro curtly. “This knowledge is really dangerous, and I must admit to this, I don't trust you, Dumbledore. The time I come from there are many faults to lie at your feet, if I'm to be honest with you”.

Dumbledore took that silently. It was disheartening in some way, the look in the eyes of Weasley, that reminded him of his own brother and the errors he committed many years ago. Looking at his student, his heart broke a bit. _“Even after all this time, I'm still not good enough”_ he thought to himself.

In all the time since Arianna's death he hadn't been able to forgive himself. Aberfoth hadn't also, of course. However, since then he had tried to be better than before, be kinder. Had tried to prevent conflicts and defuse arguments any possible way, only to still be told to his face that his life's efforts weren't good enough.

There wasn't any changing in Ro's mind, and right at the moment, the headmaster wasn't sure he wanted to hear the list of failures he had. It was discouraging, and saddening, true, but also unnecessary at the moment. They were heading to a war, and put all his efforts towards minimizing the losses was all he could do right then.

Once the New Year started, the time began to fly, in their opinion. Of course that a big part of that was having their respective roles clear at the moment, knowing everyone of them part of their duties.

The mentality of the Seventh Years became frantic, their NEWTS getting nearer every day and nerves racking up. Plus, the time-travellers had spooked the other years too, making them start to worry more about the conflict drawing closer outside the walls of the school. The fact that Hermione and Draco were teaching the younger years to defend themselves didn't help any to forget about that: why would someone who came from the future stress the importance of self-protection if they weren't in danger?

If the teachers were to ask any students, the answers would make it crystal; it was like having grown-ups with them at the classes; while the little group could smile and laugh like anybody else, they all had a drive not seen before out of scholars. They all looked for the practical applications of their studies, which in turn helped the original students to put things into perspective.

It was also their attitude towards the teachers; while respectful, something about them seemed to put them at the same level, but for Slughorn. The majority of them had been uninterested in his invitations to the Slug Club, citing having far more important things to think of. In fact, only the twins had accepted to meet regularly.

The thing that many of the students agreed with regarding them, was their maturity. Like it or not, all of them could only admit to feel outclassed by them.

Graduation was a simple enough affair, at least for the group of time-travellers. While it was true that Ro felt on edge more and more as the days passed, the others could relax enough for them to enjoy the party at the Gryffindor Tower. Malfoy and the Weasleys had been finally accepted as honorary lions and were spending there the night, only Ro and Teddy out of there.

Ro herself couldn't simply forget the enormity of the task she would tack on once the summer started, and the last thing she ever wanted was to get drunk. On one part, she disliked alcohol, but on the other, it would have felt terribly irresponsible for her. Plus, it'd be better for the baby not to be overwhelmed by the loud music and excited people.

Being with Teddy was kind of cathartic for her. It was for him, and other children, and the next generation, that they were there. That they had forsaken their time, their inmediate future, for them to bring peace to the people that would be.

Even if she were to fail, to die, she could honestly say it would be okay as long as it meant that Teddy would live, would grow up not knowing of the war fought, the war they would fight once they were out of Hogwarts. Not having to experience the same losses she had.

She was helping him eat when she realized it. Lying down her life for the children could certainly be the better way for her to go out, if she had to. Since realizing where she was, she hadn't had the opportunity to be a child, not when she had been already a young adult at five. Not a childhood, not a future.

Years she had spent trying to reach the end of the path alive, looking for ways to win the war with the less possible bloodshed out of fear of death, never thingking about the after. Looking at the future scared of it. But Teddy? She had already been a grown-up when all of this had begun, and she had been coaching her yearmates to take the situation in stride, but even them had had some kind of childhood.

Teddy wouldn't if they didn't win against Voldemort. Because of it, it was her duty to win. Her obligation to protect his childhood.

Before she went to Hogwarts, before all the worries about the conflict, and the crying because of her family and friends dying left and right, it had existed a moment in her life in which she played on her father's shed of muggle things.

Once Percy went to the boarding school, there hadn't been any way she would count on her siblings to console her. So, ransacking up her brain and with liberal use of accidental magic, she had manipulated a Rubrik cube to guard the music and songs she remembered from Before. Not as many as she would have liked, and certainly the ones not in English or Spanish had surely been lyrically fucked, but enough for her to recover that bit of her past life.

The cube created a space bubble which stopped the transaction of sound between the artificial space and its outside, which made it a good tool for her when the nightmares made her scream. After Snake-lord's resurrection she had picked it up again, needing it to fall asleep. By then she had started modifying it to suit her needs, wanting to hear her surroundings.

At the moment she could make another one for Teddy, it would be easy. A gift for him to remember her by, in case she were to die. A piece of her real self, the girl that had been almost completely lost under the pressure, the worry, the violence. The best part of herself, the happiest, the nicest. It would be enough, it could _be_ enough of herself to left behind once everything were said and done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They graduated, I wasn't aware I could ever reach this point in time *sheds a proud™ tear*. Now it's time for them to be real grown-ups, with responsabilities and shit and balance that with Voldemort's defeat, working with the Order of the Phoenix in tandem, or something like that.
> 
> The moment I'm writing this is December 25th, although I can't post until I come back home, and I'm contemplating my existence.
> 
> If any of you see the works I have posted, you all know that they aren't very big, almost all of them falling into the “one-shot” category. There has been a lot of time, like three years or so, since I wrote something so big, in this little time. This is like the biggest, best Christmas gift for myself. I hope you all are having a time as happy as mine!


	8. Summer of 1978 - Meeting the parents

Once they were out of Hogwarts, it was only due that their Families were informed. It was part of the nature of the olde spell used to transport them back in time; when within the school wards, they were the Headmaster's responsability, not their Family's, and telling them of their existence was optional. However, once they left the Sanctuary that constituted the school, once they integrated themselves into the outside world and its society, blood had to be observed. At least, in the case of those with magical parents.

Therefore, after they graduated, James and Lily had been officially informed of the arrival of Harry Potter, and they weren't the only ones. With three sons at the moment, Arthur and Molly had been invited to Hogwarts with urgency, as well as Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, whom had just suffered her first miscarriage. Surprisingly for him, Remus had also been invited, as well as the Tonkses and their daughter of five years.

Had it been another group of time/travellers they would have met their parents separately. However, Dumbledore acceded at their petition of facing that particular situation together; after all, it wasn't like any of them were interested in going to live with their parents, wanting instead to keep their own counsel.

Thankfully the Headmaster's office was large enough to fit them all comfortably, since Arthur and Lucius kept sending each other venomous glares. Also, the previous Black sisters painted a sad picture, with the youngest of them ignoring coldly the happy family of three, even when the little girl commented excitedly to his mother how pretty was the other lady. James, Remus and Lily were a little group on their own, not really knowing how to mingle with the domestic couples and not wanting to interact with the stoic blondes.

“In the first place, I must thank you all to have made time for this meeting to occur this soon, ladies and gentlemen” began the old wizard. “I'm sure all of you have questions regarding this meeting, so I'll try to explain the matter at hand as swiftly as possible” he smiled at them cordially.

“Some of you, by the grace of having been studying with us this year, already know of what I'm going to speak about, but for the sake of everyone here to be an informed party, let me begin.

“September 1st last year Hogwarts had some unexpected guests that attended this past course. To all of you who know not of this, the Headmaster of Hogwarts has access to one of the oldest magical artefacts created, Hogwarts' Grimoire. It is a book written by any and all of the Headmasters that had attended this office, and because of it, it guards a great number of olde spells, and possesses a lot of power, though it can only be wielded by the Headmaster.

“The nature of these spells is to protect Hogwarts' students. However, at the beginning of the academic year a group of seven appeared within the Great Hall, fighting against their enemies. They had been sent by their Headmaster to correct the failings of the previous generation, and had been completing their last year of education. Yesterday, most of them graduated, and all of them are going to leave these walls, as students at least, and it's now my duty to inform you of this, following their requests.

“Mister Potter, miss Evans, it is my pleasure to introduce you to your son, Harry James Potter” they young adults were entering the office while Dumbledore kept introducing them. “Mister and madam Tonks, young miss Tonks and mister Lupin, with him comes his godson, your grandson and son respectively, Edward Remus Lupin”. At that, Remus almost fell over himself, perplexed, while the Tonks couple looked between him and their young daughter.

“Lord Malfoy, Lady Malfoy, Hogwarts has had the honour of accepting within her walls a great student, whom have acquired one of the highest marks recorded at the school. I am proud to introduce you to your son Draco Lucius Malfoy” it was undeniable that the young man who entered was their son, a perfect mix of both their features and with a regal sway that denoted power and confidence in himself as he silently nodded to them before positioning himself near them, but not besides.

“Mister and madam Weasley, three of your sons came to us. The twins Fred Gideon and George Fabian, and your youngest son, Ronald Billius Weasley. I hope you can accept them all with open arms”. Together with them entered also Hermione, who saying nothing went to be besides Draco, while his parents looked at her studiously. “The remaining member of the group to travel from the future is the brightest witch of her age, miss Hermione Jean Granger and godmother to the young Teddy”. He waited a moment in the silent of the office. “Now, I'm sure everyone would love to meet their descendance over a cup of tea, so I cordially invite you all to share one with me”.

The Weasleys, the recent graduates and the Tonkses all accepted readily. Draco conceded in lieu of his own parents before they were to deny the Headmaster.

Quietly, Narcissa observed her future son with great attention. The young man was regal and controlled, however had no qualms accepting the energetic bundle of baby, cooing softly at him while the little one acquired his colouring. At the same time he was turning towards the tallest of the red-heads in the group, the one who had kept to himself instead of readily meeting his parents. The coldness in her husband's aura was easy to spot once he saw them interacting.

There was a sort of trust between them that was surprising. Between all of them, if she had to be honest about it. The twins served as a buffer between their sibling and the parents, and the girl mediated with the Tonkses and the Lupin boy. The Potter had simply smiled awkwardly at his parents before flanking up her son after putting the baby in his arms.

“But surely you'll need some kind of help...”; “...I don't know how much space we can make for you, but we can try...”; “...it is surprising that we get to have a grandchild when our daughter is merely five years old...” were some of the sentences that could be heard in the echoing Great Hall.

“Do indulge me, son. I wonder just why did you decided to meet us all together” she interjected while raising her cup to her lips. Somehow, her question was heard by the other parents and they kept their silence, equally interested.

The sly young man, whom surely had been brought up as Slytherin's Prince, turned up the corners of his lips while feeding calmly the baby. “Mother, I am truly pleased to introduce you to my friends. Fred and George have been looking for a house to share the seven of us; Hermione and Ro have been planning the moves we'll pull out in order to steer the timeline in a better direction; Teddy is my adored cousin, and Harry and I will be teaching at Hogwarts next year” he said instead.

The straightening of Lucius' posture denounced that he knew what that meant. _I chose them over you_. Andromeda had also understood it, and that made the tenseness increase. One by one, they were all getting what those words meant. _Thank you for coming, so nice to meet you, but we have work to do so don't bother trying to corral us_.

It was surprising; she would have hoped for her son to be far more suave than that. At the same time, the look in his eyes told her that this had been his target from the beginning.

“But you are only children, how will you support yourselves?” asked Molly readily. “And on top of that, taking care of the baby?”. “Don't worry about that, mother” answered the other Weasley, Ronald. “We were fighting this war a year before we travelled here, and the immediate problems have already been dealt with. We'll have no complications on that front”.

“Yeah, we're already at the final stage to buy our own house!” said then the twin without an ear. The other then added with a devious air, “Plus, Mione and Harry are great with the protective shit, and we aren't that far behind. Anyone trying to attack us will be in for some nasty surprises”.

“Don't worry about Teddy” commented the Potter. “I'll die before anyone can hurt my godson” he bowed curtly. “You can set up meetings with us by contacting Harry or Draco here at Hogwarts” informed the girl strictly. “Otherwise, we'll be unavailable”.

“Thank you, truly, for coming here today. It's not like we don't want to spend time with you, especially since in our timeline many of ours have died, but we were sent back with a target in mind” Draco started then to wrap up the meeting. “Counteracting the situation we were in twenty years from now on is far more urgent than re-establishing familiar bonds. We hope that you can understand this position of ours”.


	9. Summer of 1978 - I

It was a good thing that the twins had left their parent's home for a bit before all the shit went down, back in their timeline, as it gave them the experience to know how to navigate around to buy a flat. In the end it hadn't been possible to acquire one on Hogsmeade, but long-distances were unimportant when one knew how to apparate, or had an elf to help.

Manchester was an industrial city, with skies as grey as the rest of Great Britain, and ample* streets. Plus, it was easy to get a little house like those University students liked to rent, register it at the Ministry and then proceed to up its security.

Harry and Hermione weren't as adept at wards as Blaise had been, but even so they were nothing to scoff at. He had learnt from Lady Zabini herself and she was the best at runes of the group; within the month they had made the house unplottable and weaved blood-based wards also, taking the Weasleys as the focal point. That was extra work, true, since they had to make rune-inscribed charms to let the other four enter the propriety, but it'd be worth it in the end.

Plus, it wasn't like the twins were being idle; all that effort they had put into constructing their traps was proving useful once they bobby-trapped the space around the house. Also, they made good use of the enchantments taught to them by Arthur when they went to ask him how did he enlarge the Burrow.

The better put-on rooms were the nursery for Teddy and the giant study which guarded all their information and possible plans; a baby blue room with soft plushies and the common amenities to take care of a baby; and a well-illuminated room with several individual tables, an enormous panel to write in and multiple shelves.

The Fidelius Charm was employed to hide the place from other eyes, being Hermione the Secret Keeper, as its ultimate protection.

About the personal rooms, they depended a lot on their inhabitants. Harry and Draco hadn't decorated a lot, knowing the would still live full-time at Hogwarts once September arrived; Harry as the new DADA teacher and Draco as the one shadowing Slughorn to take up his position as the resident Potions Master in the future.

No, it hadn't been necessary for them to do that regarding their plans for Voldemort, at least, not in a direct way.

It was true that Harry could teach a lot to the other students, and it was true that providing Madam Pomfrey of potions and salves had been the main job Draco had had back in the day; however that also meant easy communication with Dumbledore on Harry's account and accessibility to Draco on Regulus' part.

This was really important, as it would be at some point in the next year that Regulus would discover the existence of horcruxes, and Ro wanted him to know that someone would have his back when the moment came. Even if he was already on their side, after knowing just how bad off would his family end at the service of the Dark Lord. After all, _she _hadn't told anyone in the group the truth about those artefacts, so Draco couldn't have told him about them, and Kreacher didn't know what the locket really was besides the thing his master died for.

Kreacher and Ro would be taking care of them once again; Hermione would be the official face to the Order of the Phoenix while the twins acquired weapons and developed attack tactics.

Bit by bit, the show was starting to gain in intensity, spurned by the first rushed actions taken by Voldemort and his newly dubbed Death Eaters.

There weren't many days that Alastor came to respect another people's guts.

Many of those chosen by Albus to form the Order of the Phoenix were nervous beings, too soft to fight fire with fire and irresponsible to boot. However, the younger ones weren't as useless, looking at the situation as if it was a pretty serious one that could degrade to a very shitty conflict if treated carelessly.

There were two young adults, Black and Potter, that had just entered the Auror program, and were really implicated with it. There was a girl, Granger, whom was always at the top of her game, minding her positions so as to maneuver herself securely if a fight were to break at a moment's notice, and the only one who was always in constant vigilance besides himself.

She also seemed to coordinate the people who was in the Order but didn't fought the open battles, like the werewolf, whose main obligation was patrolling. Or the shy-looking guy, Pettigrew, who was interning at St. Mungo and assisted Poppy when any of them came back hurt; or the young red-haired girl, Potter's girlfriend, who dedicated herself to healing potions and modifying protective runes.

It was curious and invigorating, to know that the youth weren't taking the rising of this new Dark Lord as a joke, and were instead working towards his defeat with their best efforts.

Patrolling was only allowed if the group was of three persons of more. Coming back home alone was risky, if they were to follow Granger's warnings, and it was preferable to have meetings with little groups of people to coordinate them better and to prevent leaks; if not everyone had all the information, narrowing down a possible traitor would be easier.

Dumbledore would have liked to think that all the people in the Order were trustworthy, yet mister Weasley's words were implacable in that aspect and he preferred to prevent that kind of situation than trying to resolve it.

If nothing else, at least it seemed like the time-travellers were used to run a society like this one, and that smoothed many things down.

It was in the middle of August that Ignatius Prewett invited his sons and daughter to eat with him, wanting to spend time with them and check their well-being. Also, it would be a nice occasion for him to meet once again his grandsons.

There was however a perplexing surprise when his daughter came not only with her husband and sons, but accompanied also by three young red-headed men that shared her husband's hair, her dark brown eyes and those unrefined freckles that ran amok on the Weasley line.

Two of them were identical twins, with a mischievous air that reminded him of Fabian and Gideon when they were still at Hogwarts instead of being Aurors, but the other... The other behaved the way a proper Prewett would, in the words of his older sister herself, that was standing behind him while he received his guests.

“Father, I hadn't wanted to inform you of this over a letter, lest it would be intercepted, but recently, Dumbledore called my husband and I to Hogwarts” started Molly to explain herself just out of the door to Prewett's Folly. “Apparently, Hogwarts' Grimoire can let students travel back in time, and with the employ of that method three of my future sons came to live to this time. None of them have been born at this point in time, but they weren't the only ones to do so and have proved extensively their claims”. With that said, she gestured first to the twins, who stood straight and with their hair behind their ears. “I introduce you to Frederick Gideon and George Fabian”, as one, both of them nodded towards him, letting him see that one missing ear that hadn't been holding one's hair. “The younger one is called Ronald Billius”.

Despite the last one perfect manners, he had a long mane of hair, expertly braided, that fell until his middle back, and a delicate air in spite of the old scar bisecting his right eyebrow. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Grandfather Ignatius, and to see you so well, Great-Aunt Muriel” he dipped his head towards him and inclined himself in front of his sister, kissing the air over her hand demurely. _“Ah”_ thought then Lord Prewett. _“He was educated by Muriel”_.

Lunch that day was an interesting affair, concluded the Prewett siblings while observing the time-travellers. Apparently, they had come back in time to prevent many of the deaths at the hands of the budding Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, and it was easy to spot the drive the three of them had. It was, actually, pretty invigorating for the Prewett twins to meet them; not really realizing at the moment just how bad their past had had to be for them to be there made them simply be glad of their presence there.

Lunch was a tense affair, concluded both Harry and Hermione.

As the godparents and legal guardians of Teddy, they were invited to the Tonks' house every Sunday for the older couple and their daughter to connect with the baby. Also, they were an acceptable buffer between the Tonkses and Remus, whom was invited to this meetings too.

It was understandably that Ted and Andromeda would look coldly to the werewolf, even if _he_ wasn't the one who married Nymphadora and got her with child. It was a bit sad, to look at the poor graduate berate himself for having had a son in an alternate future with anyone at all, much less someone so young, and the two friends were getting tired of the whole situation.

It was unsustainable, and Remus didn't deserve it.

However, it didn't seem like the Tonks were amenable to understand just how much pressure they were putting on Teddy's parents when insisting on having those lunch meetings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, right now I'm working on the next chapter, but until the moment it has been a b*tch and a half to deal with. Yes, it's true that partially is because this is a bit of an experiment for me. I have always had problems portraying the psychology of the characters I write about, and at the moment that's what I'm trying to do.
> 
> Whenever I read Time-Travel AUs I always wonder how can it be that there are no problems between the misplaced in time and their family, how it is that they simply accept it and are super supportive. Like, I look at that and I want more, I want the interpersonal conflicts, the depression about realizing you won't get back what you had, the curiousness but also the distrust about a newcomer claiming to be your family.
> 
> I can't believe that I want the angst, and even less that I'm trying to write it, because me and doing emotions, concretely the characters' emotions, have always been tremendously difficult for me. So please, please, once I post the next chapter do help me, tell me about inconsistencies, what you think about how Ro and co deal with things. I'll really appreciate it if you do, since I'll help me grow as a writer.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoyed the read if you've reached this point ^u^ Have a nice evening and a Happy New Year, since we're getting close and I doubt that I'll post anything tomorrow! <3
> 
> PS: Also, this chapter marks the point in which we reach page 40! I still can't believe it lol


	10. Summer of 1978 - II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON'T BE SCARED!!!
> 
> It's true, it's true, I've just erased the chapters that depict their time between the prologue and their travel back in time. A bit ago a reader told me that they found those chapters confusing, especially since the way I wrote them is very different than the others. Since those were conceived as summaries to give a brief insight into the things they shared, I will re-post them tomorrow apart from this the main story.
> 
> That said, do enjoy the reading of this crackhead of a chapter.

Living together was at that point almost rutinary*. Having shared dorms together, and being in close quarters during their sixth year while organizing the resistance had eased them all into a comfortable sense of belonging, pretty similar to that of a family.

Fred, George and Ro already had that down from the beginning, but Draco and Hermione hadn't had siblings in any sense. Harry could claim to be used to that from having practically lived back at Blaise's for several summers.

So, even after that last year back at Hogwarts, they still fitted, more or less. Even if now they all suddenly had a room for each of them, and even if there were times that getting up from the bed seemed pointless now that they didn't have a marked appointment as it had been going to classes. Helpfully, those had provided them a distraction from their recent estrangement, and a structure and a mental clutch*.

Now that they had left behind the school and its planned schedule, it was their moment to make up their own. To manage their own time, to set their marks and fulfil them, without a nagging grown-up behind to control that they were doing their work.

It was certainly good that Kreacher had travelled back with them, as well as Dobby, so they were in charge of the cooking. That was one thing less to worry about, setting times for anyone to cook. And also clean, even if they tried not to make much of a mess.

That was truly helpful; because of it they could concentrate most of their efforts towards two things: getting ready to fight Voldemort, and getting money to pay for their needs and materials. That was one reason for both Harry and Draco to accept Dumbledore's offer about working at the castle. The twins were thinking about setting up their joke shop, just instead of as a physical space, as an owl service, though it was risky.

At the moment, Hermione was looking into apprenticeships so she could enter one after they had defeated the bastard. And Ro was yet the only one to not look beyond her death, stressing herself over when to get the horcruxes so as to not let that snake know that they knew about them. That was her fault, for not letting them know about the artefacts, and for manipulating the acts from behind the scenes, so that Dumbledore and her destroyed most of the horcruxes, so that Harry was uninformed about their existence.

And of course, she had taken that particular duty as hers and wasn't sharing. _My fault, my duty to clean it up_, had been her mentality for the last years. It wasn't healthy, and at some point she would actually break down, but that day wasn't yet.

One of the most bothering things that summer was, in Ro's opinion, the fact that their families wanted to be with them a lot. There had been several occasions in which she and her brothers had been invited to lunch or dinner by the Prewetts, and always with Molly and Arthur there. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good.

She couldn't help but remember the mauled body of Bill, and the guts from Percy. Her mother's cold eyes when looking at her for not behaving as a boy should, her father's passiveness. It wasn't nice to her to be there, as it put her terribly on edge. At least the twins fared that a bit better than her, preferring to concentrate into getting to know their twin uncles. They had been named in their honour, seeing as they died the week before their birth, and had heard lots of stories about them and their mischievousness.

She knew for facts that their family's meetings weren't the worst of the lot, what with Harry and Hermione having to share meals once a week with the personification of two icebergs, a self-loathing werewolf and a child that was getting more irritated as the time passed. Sometimes Draco would drop in, but he did so scarcely.

Besides them, from time to time Sirius and James would want to meet, usually to go drinking together, and on the rare occasion, to invite the whole group to eat at Sirius' flat or back at Potter Manor.

Each of them had found themselves in many a tense familial situation that summer, all of their family members vying for their attention one way or the other, and being utterly useless. She didn't care she was being uncharitable in her thoughts towards them, they were slowly chipping at her concentration, dividing their attention and eating their time.

She was feeling increasingly uncomfortable when going to eat with her family, and her tolerance was reaching low points. Maybe because of it was that her last meeting with the Prewetts and the Weasleys ended that bad.

It had all started because of little Bill, who had asked her, of the three of them, how was life at the Gryffindor dorms. With a small laughter she had answered easily. “I wouldn't know, since I've been in Slytherin for my seven years. Did you know we snakes live under the lake?”

Lord Prewett hadn't commented at that, and it seemed like Great-Aunt Muriel was about to say something, but instead it had been Molly the first to speak up. “Excuse me?” had asked, as if offended by the words. “That cannot be, dear, as the whole Prewett and Weasley lines had been, always, in Gryffindor. No son I raised would have ever gone into that House, much less if a war is going to break because of Slytherin's Heir as you are all claiming”.

Hearing that Ro had straightened even more her back, feeling personally attacked because of the tone, the words, because of being previously on edge and also reacting to years of passive-aggressive verbal put downs about her House and housemates.

“I was. I was called for Slytherin within a second under that Hat and nothing you'll do, think or say will ever change it” she snarled while closing one of her fists under the table. Things started to heat up after that between both of them, since Ignatius couldn't take a chance to cut down the growing argument, until Ro stood up, slamming her hands in front of her.

“Stop belittling me for something I can't change! Being Slytherin does _not_ make me evil by defect, but it makes you as dumb, blind and prejudiced as the muggle-hater purebloods!” in this way started her ramble. “You retract yourself this moment, young man!” argued Molly. “I'm not a man! I'm not! And you will be able to tell me shit the moment _you_ spy on your parents to get information about Fuckermort! When _you_ make sure to have all the papers in order to smuggle out of the country all the muggleborns and halfbloods you get your hands on! Once _you_ fight against murderous death eaters and have to choose between killing them off or let them kill your friends!

“My snakes did all that and more! They gave their lives for me! They could have been living safely at the Dark Lord's service, could have follow their parents' steps and nobody would bat an eye because not thinking on your own and letting your father choose _what's best for you_ is the usual here in this fucking society! But they didn't!

“The only thing you've done since I wore green and silver has been judge me! Well, too bad for you, I'm not stopping being me just to make you happy! This is my life, my decisions, and you can just go fuck yourself!”

Worked up and completely furious after shutting up the whole family she stomped* out the room, her ears as red as any of the Weasleys when in rage, and once she thought just a bit more rationally she apparated the hell out of there.

Back at the table Fred got out too, intending to follow her and try to help her calm down before she got back at their house. The people were still silent when George interlaced his hands and put on a fake smile before starting to speak.

“You obviously don't know this, but after she was born, there was a moment in which Ro started to cry. I don't know the reason why, nobody back home did”. That last sentence was a bit of a smack down for Arthur and Molly. Even after trying to connect with those sons they hadn't had, they still thought of that other time as home. And it wasn't strange, true, but the parents couldn't help but feeling them as theirs.

“She was like that for several years, crying on her own and not really being on the real world. One day that changed, she started to deal with us, and speaking as a grown-up instead of a child. From then on, she had always been the more responsible one of all of us. The crying still kept going, especially a nights, and she would wake up almost always because of nightmares that she never told Fred or me.

“In fact, Percy was the one to calm her down then, the one she confided in. For the rest of us, she was like a strong adult with the body of a child, and it wasn't surprising when she entered in Slytherin. Plus, all of the things she had just said, are all true. Blaise Zabini was one of the people we let in charge back home to carry the last students to safety. The Greengrass Heiress was the greatest help to get the children to the United States. Theo Nott took down a number of death eaters, including his father, before dying. I don't know the details, but Vincent Crabbe was tortured by his family and imperiused as punishment for supporting Ro and her agenda against the Dark Fucker.

“Not all the Slytherins are evil incarnated, not all the Gryffindors are noble and good. I've been in Slyhterin this past year, and not because I suddenly became this heartless monster ready to eat children, but because I resolved to make use of everything in my arsenal to defend me and mine no matter the cost I'll have to pay for it. I don't care whom I'll kill, maul or merely destroy with my words if that means that what's left of my past keeps living.

“Judge that how you will; just like Ro, I don't care and I won't change to please you. Thank you for inviting my siblings and I, but we will be grateful if you stop doing it. We can't seem to see eye to eye at the moment, and I'd prefer to concentrate my efforts into preventing the future magic rupture* that Wizarding Britain will suffer if the situation doesn't change soon”.

After giving a curt nod towards Lord Prewett and a last look to his parents, George stepped out the dining room too.

Back at their house, Ro was still worked up about it, pretty furious and in dire need to have time for herself. At the same time, going out on her own as she would have preferred would be reckless, and she simply couldn't let herself jeopardize* the situation. Therefore, there wouldn't be a solitary walk to cool down her rage, there wouldn't be music blasting off her ears thanks to headphones until the rest of the world would simply shut up, and she was conscious enough to know that her friends were better off not having to deal with her at the moment.

She usually was slow to anger, but had a mean temper when poked, and tended to snap at anyone speaking at her. Plus, when she was like that the cruel streak she concealed most of the time resurfaced with vengueance, making things worse even, because she still could be rational if it suited her. It was only that in those instances she was careless of those she would hurt with her words.

It was for that reason that she didn't answer the questions of Hermione, instead locking up her door and turning on the cube, ready to let her fury stew withing herself for a few hours before calming herself down.

Draco and Harry had seen her that way once, though she tried to hide herself once she reached that point, and warned Hermione off their friend for the next hour. Sometimes if was better to let people deal with things on their own, especially when she herself knew how bad she'd felt once her anger disappeared and she remembered the way she treated her friends.

Even so, Hermione wasn't one to simply let things like that fly, and so went to Ro's door. She couldn't hear a thing from the inside, and wasn't sure that her friend would listen to her, so she resolved to simply sit down besides the door with a book, waiting for the moment Ro would get out.

Of the twins, Fred was the first to come back, and seeing the worried looks from Draco and Harry prontly told them of the screaming match between Ro and their mother. Harry had seen in a number of occasions the contempt between both of them, back at their time, and could admire Ro standing up for herself for the first time, even if this time's Molly didn't deserve it as much as their counterpart.

Hearing that, Draco worried more. He had listened from time to time Ro's complains about her short-sighted mother regarding herself and her House, and while it was great that Ro had spoken up, how had that affected her at the moment? He, better than anyone else, knew how stressed she was because of Shitty-Snake. The dark bags under her eyes hadn't disappeared yet, even after a year in the past.

One good thing, great really, about the music was that it could be a fantastic partner. Ro calmed down relatively soon, massaging her brow and sporting a mild migraine when she turned off the cube and went to exit her bedroom to apologize to her friends and get something to eat.

However, there was Hermione, with some pieces of fruit ready and a thick book on her hands, looking up at her and smiling softly once she saw her in a more relaxed mood. “Want some company?” asked the brown-haired young woman while showing off the a chocolate tablet. “Sure, come on in” answered Ro with a tired smile.

For a few moments both of them were silent, simply sharing a number of peaches and eyeing the chocolate.

“It was because of my mother” said Ro.

As a girl within a boy's body, she had confided in Mione when it came to that particular matter. The bushy-haired lioness was a bold girl who would go to the edge of the Earth for her precious people, and having someone like Ro besides her, who felt like a girl but wasn't that much into make up or getting her nails done had been like a balm for her, since she had always struggled to connect to many of the girls in their group.

And so, once she was told that Ro liked boys instead of girls, while it had been a bit of a let down because of the small, very little crush she had been developing on him at the time, Hermione had gained a sister. Someone who understood her passion for books, and who would try to help her with her hair just to have fun together and not because of wanting to impress other people. From then on, it wasn't that bad being a girl uninterested in getting pretty.

Due to that, she had been the one Ro told about the situation back at her home, with her mother always arguing about the length of her hair and shouting to high hell the first time she saw her with a skirt. Because, while Before Ro had always tended to use jeans for everthing, once in a while she also wanted to put on dresses and do her hair.

And she had never dealt with such contempt from her family. Suddenly the eyes of her mother were colder than ever, and her father wasn't able to look at her in the eyes. From time to time Molly would sneak a comment, loaded with such negative emotions, that she would shrink over herself, trying to be invisible before getting back to her bedroom.

True, she hadn't been a real teen, but she wasn't a real grown-up either. If she had known what their reaction would be, she'd have been more careful to not let them know.

“She was just, saying that no son of hers would have ever been Slytherin, as if whoever had done so would have been disowned, and it was like before but worse, because she was saying that to me, after everything Blaise and Theo and the rest did for the Light Side, and because I _know_ that Percy should had been in Slytherin and didn't just to not let her down, and I couldn't shut up.

“Just, what is her problem? We're her children, not dolls for her to plan our lives, and not every snake is an asshole just like not every lion is a fucking saint” she said, bitter.

“Sometimes I just hate her so much” was whispered in the silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I think this will be it. I'm not lying, I had like half of the chapter done when I simply cut it down completely and wrote about another thing. That other thing being Ro and the half argument with her family, cause it just wouldn't leave my head.
> 
> In origen, this chapter would have been the building up for the Black Family Meeting I will refer to in the next chapter, and yes, I think those parts aren't that bad. However at the same time, I wonder how could I portray to the best of my ability such gathering, especially since I'm considering many of them to be alive (if you look at their family tree I promise you that is big with just a few generations. They deserve an investigation for their own, because I need to know how many were alive at this point in the timeline and if so, how or at least when they died between this moment and the beginning of canon).
> 
> Also, regarding Ro's posture about her mother and the things she recriminates herself and to the other woman... How do I explain this simply.
> 
> Ro believes that she shouldn't have been born, that she's filling in the space where Ron should exist, and that if she wasn't there canon wouldn't have been so screwed over. Since she faults herself for her mere existence, for being her instead of Ron, she believes that she has not many grounds on that to feel as bad for Molly's treatment about her being a woman -let's not forget that she believes herself responsible for many deaths in her timeline, not the least of all, the rest of her siblings-. It doesn't have to seem rational, but when you hate yourself (and she does) that need, or want for punishment can take many forms.
> 
> And that takes us to her out-of-proportion defense of the Slytherins. Have you ever felt that you aren't enough, but yet you want to feel like you would want to be? I mean, she thinks herself to be guilty of the situation, but she also wants to feel like she's not completely bad, that her being there isn't only just a big, fat fucked up thing the others have to deal with. And, at the moment and even before they travelled back in time, her family and the whole society has seen her with a number of tags, preconceptions that weren't easy to shake off. Male. Weasley. Slytherin.
> 
> And that's important, because she dealt with her housemates, and they helped her and the Light Side, even if everything went to hell eventually. She already has proof that the snakes aren't the be all, end all of All Things Evil, thus being put together with them isn't the end of the world, and she can also justify to herself that she does not defends them because she is one of them, but because they deserve it even if she doesn't.
> 
> Honestly, it's just a big mess, because dealing with self-guilt isn't easy, and it simply doesn't disappear just because. This within her has been building up since things started to escalate in her timeline, and the cherry on top were Percy and Ginny when they died – even if I have yet to portray it.
> 
> Big sorry for this epitaph, a little more of explanations and it'd get to be bigger than the chapter itself xD


	11. Summer of 1978 - III

“Ro?” called Draco from the other side of the door. Hermione had just left the room, and night was starting to fall. Without words the red-head let her friend enter, carrying his pillow under his arm and already wearing his pyjamas. “Want some company?” asked the blonde one.

With a small, tired smile Ro invited him in.

It had started years ago, when being barely sixteen years old Draco had ran away from Malfoy Manor in the middle of the night. His father had been the one to inform him of his soon-to-be marking ceremony to finally be under the command of the Dark Lord, and desperate he had forsaken his family, inheritance and birth rights.

In order to protect him from her sister, and out of respect for her husband, Narcissa had chosen to stay behind instead of going with him, automatically condemning herself to death, as far as Draco knew. However, he had been unable to convince her to leave with him, portkeyed against his wishes by her to London, in front of Grimmauld Place with a recently freed Dobby.

Sirius was the one who opened the door and ushered him in, nervous and desperate, but Ro had been the one they called that night. That had been the first of many nights he spent sobbing in the arms of his friend, unwilling to part from her for long times, and the beginning of their shared sleeping nights.

Sixth Year had been a harsh one. The children of the Death Eaters who rebelled against their parents' ideals were uncovered and punished accordingly, and Draco couldn't go to Hogwarts, lest he were to be taken by a Death Eater sympathiser. His father wouldn't be the one to step in and defend him against the Dark Lord.

Once Ro went back to the school he started to develop some mild insomnia, that was countered thanks to the weirdest contraption she had invented, a little coloured cube. However, even if he could sleep well without her besides him, he was never one to misspent a chance when presented to him. Plus, it wasn't as if Ro herself didn't like better to sleep with him; there had been too many nights she had woke up fearful or crying, and him being there had made easier to sleep once again.

He was aware that he shouldn't let himself have that one weakness, to only be able to rest fitfully besides her, to want to fall asleep with her within his arms and her body as a warm source, but he had long decided that at least that, he could indulge in. He would enjoy that so that he could put himself through the nines in order to become a better soldier, because at the end of the day, that was what they were. Soldiers, warriors, cannon fodder. Yes, they tried to better the world, and put the effort in and were the motor behind the Young Resistance, but at the moment they were no politicians. They would all fight on the first line and possibly would lose their lives there.

That night they didn't talk, it wasn't needed. But once he opened his eyes in the morning there was Ro, her face buried on his collarbone, her hands tangled with the fabric at his back.

The argument with her family wasn't cause enough to stop her life, at least in her eyes, so the next day she put them off her mind, preferring to spend her energy in the company of Hermione and her arithmancy, which would give them the minimal number needed of each kind of wix to avoid another magical colapse in their country.

That had been, with a fair margen, the worst thing Voldemort brought with his war: an imbalance in the natural magic of Great Britain which had sparked minor natural disasters by the time they were gone and an influx in the birth of magical creatures, which subsequently had alerted the muggles to the presence of the creatures. Ley lines suffered, protective wards started to fall and the spells that conjured magical expanded space fell through, suddenly losing that space and both the things and the wix that were inside. That in turn only served to unbalance the magic even more.

So, while they had claimed to have Voldemort as their enemy -and he was, but he was so at a personal level- the actual reason Snape had sent them all to the past was to prevent that disequilibrium, to avoid the sudden loss of so many light wix and the murders of muggleborns, which were the influx Magic had provided to beef up their community.

Each pureblood family had possessed a distinct, special kind of magic, even if because of the inbreeding it had been lost to time, and the disappeared bloodlines had been what tipped the scale far too much to one side without remedy.

Now they were studying the politics reigning in their country and those that directed them, besides Voldemort and his cronies, whom they couldn't simply kill off and be done. That was the stressing thing, having to carefully choose what to do so as to not upset the balance and to preserve* the equilibrium for the two next generations at least. And hopefully, also include plans to educate the other people about it.

It was during one of those weird occasions in which Draco also visited the Tonks household along with Harry and Hermione that a raven left a letter there. At the end of the first week of August one Arcturus Black, the current Lord Black, and his wife Melania formally invited Andromeda and her offspring to a Black Family Meeting.

Harry and Draco wouldn't know it until that night, when Sirius went to see them worried and maybe just that bit furious, that them two had also been invited as wards of the disowned Black Heir.

The Meeting was apparently an affair the family celebrated each summer the week before the beginning of the scholar year, so as to have all of the members reunited before the children parted ways for the next months, and both Andromeda and Sirius had spent several years already without an invitation.

That only served to make Remus feel worse, unable to prevent his son to go with the family that had tortured, humiliated and disowned Padfoot, without a claim over Teddy when it came to his protection but with all the scorn felt by the Tonkses and the need to assume a responsibility by the acts of one Remus Lupin that wasn't him.

It has to be understood, that werewolves are creatures of pack, and Moony was an alpha. The need to protect was strong, yet he couldn't fulfil it regarding the baby that everyone claimed as his. He himself couldn't naturally see Teddy as his, but he would do so in a heartbeat without questions, if only Remus, as the human, didn't doubt himself; if only Remus wasn't being held accountable for what in the Tonkses eyes' amounted to practically the rape of their baby girl. Even if that hadn't been the case, at the moment Ted nor Andromeda could see their little Nymphadora as more than the five years old that she was. And to control the way the looked at Lupin wasn't easy, not like lording every little mistake of his was.

Despite their best efforts, at the moment Harry nor Hermione were able to make them have a little bit of patience regarding Remus, not with things that really counted for something. Harry himself was starting to despise, just a little, the Tonkses. They had no rights to hate Remus for something that wasn't even his fault. Luckily until the moment Hermione had been able to calm him down, defusing the tense situations and protecting Remus as much as she could, but even her was starting to be of the idea that Ro had the better solution: let them to their own and concentrate their efforts anywhere else, and if they had to meet someone, the Marauders were the better option. At least them weren't keen to think about familiar drama, instead looking upfront at the brewing war.

Two redheads and one blonde were walking on Diagon Alley, having encountered the Weasley Twins one Peter Pettigrew while on his way to buy non-perishable foods for his mother. While Wormtail himself wasn't as interesting as the other Marauders, as fearless or inventive, the siblings likes him a lot, since the shorter guy was the nicer one towards Ro, ready always to smile at her and take her side whatever the matter at hand. It was like looking a puppy wagging his tail and that also reminded them just a bit of Neville, when years ago he had yet to find the resolution he sported by the time they left their time.

Having known Neville and just how great he had always been, none of the time-travellers had had it in them to laugh at the boy. It was too easy to see a parallel there and being kind towards him costed them nothing. Since their arrival those times he was the butt of a joke had descended, and his chances to spend time with friends of his own, instead of those who just wanted to coattail him to get to know the other marauders had increased. And his self-esteem was the better for it.

So that fine morning he kept the twins' company, telling them about those shops that hadn't existed in their time, listening in turn to their woes with their parents and making plans to meet soon to help them announce their new owl-order shop.

When Narcissa got up that morning she was feeling under the weather. The previous night both her and Lucius tried to conceive a heir, now that she could get pregnant again, and those nights left her feeling restless in her own skin.

“Archer” she called to the air once she felt motivated enough to stand up. The faithful house-elf that had followed her from her childhood appeared besides her, already with a fragrant cup of tea in a tray for her to take. Offering the creature a discrete nod she took a sip of her beverage, letting the warm liquid invade her and confort her. While she did so Archer started reading her a list with the pendant things for that day, also informing her that Master Malfoy had already went to the Ministry and would probably eat outside.

“Do open the windows, and prepare the garden for the visit of Parkinson and Nott this afternoon. Make orders to have the abraxans take a walk for the grounds and revise if our contractors have need of anything to procure it to them. Draw a bath for me, with the bath salts and arrange for Madam Wyatt to come immediately after” ordered primly. “Yes, Miss Cissy” with an inclination of his little head the creature proceded to obey.

Languidly Narcissa started to unclothe herself, walking naked towards the bath which could only be acceded from her bedroom, where warm steam coiled around her body before she laid on the lavish tub. Letting out a sigh she left the hot water and the soft healing potions in there do their magic on her back and thighs, which felt sore.

The hour wasn't up yet when Archer told her about the arrival of Madam Wyatt and the young Lady got out to put on bath robes to greet her personal healer. The wizened witch had been the one to deliver the youngest of the Black sisters and the only reason her mother had survived giving birth for the third time. Charity Wyatt came from a time where the biggest threat was Grindewald and healers and mediwitches were sorely needed back in Europe, and there had she travelled to collaborate.

When Narcissa was younger she wanted to be like her, even if she could never vocalize such aspiration to anyone in her family. It wasn't proper for a young miss of her position to dream in that way, to dislike the notion of marriage. But Charity had always been besides her when it mattered, answering her questions about healing spells and supporting her through her doubts like the good Hufflepuff she had been half a century ago.

So now Narcissa wasn't the least bothered to receive whom she considered her oldest friend in such an indecorous way. Anyways it wasn't like she expected visits to judge her according to her indoor clothes.

“Good morning, Charity” she greeted the older witch, already sat at the circular table in her private parlour. “Did you sleep well, Cissy?” asked the healer, eyeing her suspiciously. “Yesterday Lucius and I attempted to have a heir” commented her instead. The older woman was already aware of the unease that Lady Malfoy felt regarding sexual intimacy, and proceeded to cast a charm over her in order to know if she had managed to get pregnant again.

One could arguably say that it wasn't needed for her to provide for a heir now that Draco Lucius Malfoy had come back in time. The young man was undoubtedly hers, and even with the few hours she had spent in his company she already loved him. Even if he was barely a few years younger than herself, even if it was obvious that he didn't want anything to do with her husband and herself by proxy. Narcissa already knew she would walk Fiendfyre for him if needed, and hadn't spared details about him to her healer.

Almost compulsively she had looked for any information about him she could get her hands on, including the clique he had travelled back in time with, the owl-order joke shop, the potions mastery her son had entered under Slughorn, the weekly visits the Weasleys had payed to the Prewetts. She wished for just a chance to connect with her son, the way to speak with him and get to know him, get to know of the experiences that had shaped him to be the man he was today, since she hadn't been there to see it unfolding through the years.

Seeing the proud young man another version of herself had birthed had ignited within her the wish for a son, a baby that could be so much more for her than the mere Heir Lucius required. Not an obligation, but a new life to love and nurture, a possibility that she suddenly looked very much forward to, even when it meant facing the very act that incommoded her.

“My congratulations, Cissy” the wrinkled face of Charity composed a soft smile. Narcissa smiled faintly hearing her words, taking one of the pastries in front of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that I wasn't looking for such development regarding Narcissa. This has blindsided me too now that I could finally sit down to write it. I wanted to let other people show their world instead of Ro, wanted to start completing their view of this time and their relationships. I don't know if you'll like this one, as I said, right now I'm just perplexed and don't know what to think, so I'll simply post this one after proofreading instead of sitting down on it for a few days.  
16-04-2020 Edit: Currently I'm rewriting the Sixth Year in The Bare Bones, so I've done a minor edit here. In fact, I think I should re-read Overlay before I keep going -_-


	12. Ch 17: Summer of 1978 – Black's Meeting - Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you remember that little summary I posted a few days ago about the Black Family apart from this story. I'm going with that opened besides me and consulting it, and maybe I write something and then when I check I go "Oh, damn, she's dead already, forget about it" lol. Now that chronological line is a bit more detailed from my side, at one point in the future I'll update it.
> 
> What I'm trying to tell is, I apologize. I've already admitted I know nothing about how-to-politics and that's honestly the biggest reason there is almost no dialogue on this one. I don't know if any of you could appreciate the headache it was to me to even compose this little thing that doesn't even account for half a chapter, because while I can't say that I've hated it with all my heart (because I haven't, and I don't) it's still something I don't know how to deal with to the point of perfection.
> 
> Therefore after a month or so contemplating what ever do with this, now you receive this. Make of it what you will, because I don't know how to make it better at this point.

“Are you ready, Potter?” Draco's voice asked briskly. It was safe to say that the blonde felt a little bit nervous, going to meet that extended family of his mother that he had never met prior, since, after all, most of them were already dead by the time he could sit at the formal Reunions. He had only had the pleasure to meet Lord Black and his cousins, Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and Grandfather Pollux, and by the time he was a Fifth Year all of them had been buried already.

Harry was already set, having made an effort to contain his hair with a ribbon, Teddy in the arms of his godmother asleep. “We meet Sirius at the Leaky in ten” nodded the other young man, looking over Draco's appearance to check it over.

“Good luck!” wished them the twins obnoxiously from their place over the sofa, raising up a butterbeer as if to cheer for them. “Shhh!” shushed them Hermione, in case they were to wake up Teddy. “Don't take chances” said Ro with a serious expression. “Apparate out of there if you're ever in danger”.

“Yeah, yeah” batted aside Harry her worries. If worse were to happen he was confident in their ability to make a run for it, especially with Sirius and Andromeda at their backs, both the white sheeps from that family. Draco nodded in her direction, silently reassuring her that he'd take care of both.

The three guys apparated outside of the flat belonging to the Tonks family, the place they'd go to the Black Castle from. There were already Andromeda waiting for them. The atmosphere was a bit rigid, since Sirius didn't appreciate their behaviour towards Moony; not to mention that despite her being Teddy's grandmother, Harry was the one who had his custody. He hadn't wanted to bring him to the Black Meeting, and while she would have taken exactly the same decision, she wasn't pleased to be denied the rights over her grandson.

Soon the fireplace was lit with green flames, each of them arriving to the drawing room of the Black Castle. There was an older, aristocratic woman, her straight, black, hair tied back in an elaborate up-do, her gray eyes analyzing them four while greeting and welcoming them to noble residence of Lord Black.

She was Cassiopeia Black, one of the very few witches of her generation that had never bowed to other expectations and turned down every suitor her parents presented her without a second look. She seemed intransigent, strong-willed and had a no-nonsense attitude while conducing them all to the reception.

No one said anything while walking, but even doing so Draco could pretend to be at ease. Andromeda had a closed off expression while the tension was building on Sirius' body. Harry's eyes shifted between the corridor and the doors, alredy looking for exits in case they were to be needed.

Narcissa was the first one to greet them, keeping herself besides Draco while Cassiopeia disengaged herself in order to check that everything was ready. Lady Malfoy was the one tasked to the honour of introducing the time-travellers to the extended Black Family.

The first one they payed their greetings to was of course Lord Black, Arcturus the Third. The widower man was the oldest wizards present there, carrying himself with an elegant poise both Harry remembered from the very few times he had met him before he died. Even if the man didn't know it, Harry respected a lot the Family Head and last member alive of the Blacks, whom argued for Sirius' freedom and reinstatement with tooths and nails, delivering retribution himself. He hadn't had the chance to get to know him deeply, as the old wizard passed away barely after his Fourth Year's Christmas and he had atended the Yule Ball celebrated that year.

Next was Pollux, the also widower father of Walburga and Alphard, whom both the time-travellers had heard of enough to remember clearly. He wasn't the most agreeable, especially towards Sirius and Andromeda, but couldn't say anything againts Draco, who was obviously Narcissa's, and Harry, whose magical aura was off the charts for someone as young as himself.

Ladies Callidora Longbottom and Cedrella Weasley were probably the most cordial towards their little group of four, mellowed a bit in comparison to other Blacks. Orion appeared to be completely disinterested in them, and thankfully his wife Walburga was't every bit the displeasant witch they had known from her portrait, at the very least not openly, while her youngest brother Cygnus -Narcissa, Andromeda and Bellatrix' father- was as uptight as her, especially towards his daughter and Sirius. However the middle sibling, Alphard, was as chill as Sirius had recounted years ago in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.

Bellatrix wasn't as intense as they remembered her, not in comparison to her older self they had killed off barely a year ago, but her loyalties fell deep with her master already. It was a good thing no one back at the school had recognized her back them, and thank Merlin Draco had thought of incinerating the bodies before anyone could take a closer look to them.

The encounter between Sirius and Regulus wasn't the best also, the older one strung up and wanting to escape that farce of family meeting as soon as it would be possible, the younger not wanting to cast suspicions over his secret partnership with Draco.

Dinner was a tense affair, a mesh of stilted conversation, judgement spewed in an educated fashion, a show of little scorns. Thankfully as the time ran they were getting to the thick of things, the matters that interested Lord Black. Ever since their arrival the Black Family Tree had most curiously been modifyed, showing Andromeda to have a daughter who had a son whom, by rights of Magic, was recognized as the Black Heir. That wasn't everything, since that son was spelled as the Heir and Godson of one Harry James Potter-Black, who was adopted siblings with Draco Sirius Black. The both of them had been blood-adopted by one Sirius Black, current Lord Black in his time, practically making them full-blooded Blacks, yet Draco appeared to be Sirius and Narcissa's son while the Potter had had Sirius added as a third parent.

It was a most unusual situation, especially since Potter-Black was recognized by the Family Magic as Lord Black too. Were he to kick the bucket tomorrow it'd be that until then unknown party the one who would carry the position of Head of the Black Family.

That had been as troubling as it was intriguing, but Lord Arcturus couldn't say he wasn't pleased as he got to know the kid. Not only was he terribly powerful, but despite what young Regulus had told of him being in Gryffindor he had a good head over his shoulders, maneuvering without bigger problems the little nuances of the meeting. And, most important, Arcturus was aware that, while he hadn't met any other members of the family, Potter-Black had had to know him back in his time. There was a certain deference in his manners that spoke highly of the young man having met him in the past.

However the tense peace wasn't to last; the arrival of the time-travellers had thrown certain plans up in the air before those could consolidate better.

While not much could be done in regards to Andromeda and her situation, as she had left behind her family per her own choice, and Arcturus himself had seen to it that she would be disowned, since she had never argued back about her marriage prospects, there was much to unpack about Sirius' situation and especially Walburga's actions.

After all, he had never chosen anyone else to be his Heir, and she should have never blast him off the Family simply for not wanting to bow to her whims. He himself had been the one to tell Sirius, not long before he went to Hogwarts for the first time, that no Black bowed ever to someone else. A true Black followed his or her path, damning everyone else in the process.

And he, Lord Black, had never know about her driving off his Heir, casting him off the Family Tree; had he known before she would have wound up dead long before the situation escalated to the point it had reached.

Many a thing had occurred during that little get-together, spells thrown out at some point even. That served only to highlight the new family members' fast reflexes, and to show off the fine control they had over their magic, not to mention the synchronization among them.

Lord Black could very well be pleased, as they'd make fine a fine addition to the Black Family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to clear this up, however I have portrayed the Blacks or whatever you get from what I wrote, they are not a nice family. Yes, of course, Arcturus III may protect his own, and Alphard was the cool uncle, and there are at least four women who married into “light” families, but Sirius ran away for a reason.
> 
> Do I think that it had partially to do with Walburga isolating him? Well, maybe. It'd make sense for her to only bring the family members whose opinions align with hers. But that doesn't account for Alphard, or those who married into the Weasley family. That doesn't mean that Alphard is sun and kitties, just that he supports Sirius.
> 
> What I'm trying to tell, it's that Lord Black was probably a Grindewald sympathiser and could get behind Voldemort, maybe. From what I know he didn't do so in canon, but he allowed the youngest generation, the future of his family to get in line behind him. How much of that was he allowing his grandsons and daughters to do as they wished, how much of it was Walburga covering her manipulations, or just he supporting the new Dark Lord's vision, I don't know. I don't know just until what point were other Blacks obsessed with blood-purity, how much Sirius' warped vision of his family was him just generalizing everything after being raised by Walburga.
> 
> What I know is that Orion, Sirius' father, cared not, and that Walburga was flat-out obsessed, that Alphard liked his nephew enough to leave him everything he had to inherit, that apparently (maybe it's fanon, who ever knows sh*t about this) Andromeda was to marry Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix would marry Lucius Malfoy and that Narcissa was being groomed to be the next Lady Black and would have married Sirius, or something.


	13. September 1978 – I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this were in consonance with the previous chapters, that would have meant that once Draco was Sorted in the past he should have answered as Black, Draco, since Sirius blood-adopted him after he renounced to his father's family name.
> 
> However there's this one thing to account for: his appearance didn't change, he was still very similar to the man who fathered him years ago. Anyone who were to look at him from the Marauders' Era would have say he was kin to Lucius, and that's unescapable; it was only his magic the one that changed to be more Black than Malfoy. So I'll say that knowing this he simply gave Dumbledore his previous surname so there wouldn't be absurd theories or whatever.
> 
> That said, I have to thank you all, wonderful readers, for the enormous patience you have with me. I know I'm the slowest of the slow, and that my chapters' length varies a lot, and that this is taking us all to places very weird wherein nobody knows how it will all finish, but you're still here. Reading. Like, I still can't believe it? My writing has a lot to work on, and this progresses with calm -another thing I can't believe; what the hell I'm doing with a WIP? I don't do WIPs! They're the bane of my existence, I only post when I'm already finished!-, and it's also a strange plot with no heads or tail.
> 
> So thank you, for enter here, and read it, bookmark it, give it kudos or just thinking that this could be interesting enough to read later. It means to me far more than I admit when writing this notes, usually concerned with explaining things I myself don't always understand.

“Is weird, to be back at Hogwarts by ourselves and as teachers, no less” murmured Harry with a pout. The first week back there had passed, and while most of the students weren't giving him problems, he missed Teddy a ton, unsettled after two years of taking care of him everyday.

Luckily the others were in the middle of the process to install a floo connection on their little house -still not a home, just something temporary- for them to be able to visit them at a moment's notice. However at the moment the floo connection they had at Hogwarts proved itself to be troublesome.

Before the academic year started, Draco and Harry along with Andromeda and even Sirius had been invited to a Formal Meeting by the Black Family. They had ended going, despite everything, but it wasn't as if things had gone swiftly.

The reason had been their unnatural appearance in the Black Family Tapestry, connecting them all. Something obvious, seeing as Sirius had blood-adopted both Draco and Harry back in their time before he died. The version of the tapestry back at Black Castle also showed off their godfather-godson connection, and Lord Black wasn't going to let disownment get between him and the time-travellers.

At least, that's what they had thought at first; turns out _he_ had never disinherited Sirius, who was still Heir of a Heir, and that untapped the can of worms that had been Walburga's manipulations to get her older son to renounce the family.

That didn't mean that Lord Black wasn't considering courting the Dark Lord, but it made a nice point in their favour.

However, the chilling note in which the meal had ended was thanks to Bellatrix and their response towards her.

Just like Narcissa, she had felt betrayed once she knew of Andromeda's eloping, and that had been the nail in the coffin for her to despise the mudbloods who felt entitled to raise above their station. Hating them, and discomfited by Andromeda's appearance at the table, she had sent a minor jinx towards her once her patience ended after listening to her second sister mention once her husband while dining.

However, two things happened then: Draco conjured a _Protego_ with strength enough to be physically touchable. Harry sent an _Expelliarmus_ and acquired her wand in two seconds flat.

“That” had said the Potter, “was a warning”. Both young men were glaring at the people sat at the table. “Dear Aunt Bella, do not tempt us into killing you” Draco had smiled saccharinely with sharp eyes.

Harry couldn't see how that could ever help them retaining a good relationship with the Blacks, but he cared very little about it at the moment. He had called the Kreacher of their time to get them, Andromeda and Sirius out of there before they could speak up, and Narcissa had come with them by the grace of being sat beside her son and having extended her hand to his arm.

Thankfully, there hadn't been much time to dwell on it, even if Narcissa requested of her son to get in contact with her any time soon, since classes had started that same week. It was a weird change of pace, to go from writing the essays to be the ones assigning them and correcting them also.

Draco at the very least still could shadow Slughorn to get a better feel about it, but Harry went in completely blind. Luckily Defence had always been one of his strengths, and soon enough he was enjoying his teaching position more than he would have imagined in the past.

  
“I think that Lady Malfoy would help us if Draco asked her to” argued Hermione lightly.

They were fortunate that Lord Voldemort had yet to go off the deep end and start ordering the massacres that started to unbalance the magical equilibrium in Wizarding Britain, but that didn't mean that they had a census of any kind to tell them in more detail just how many dark, gray and light wix were contributing the magical ambient of their country, not to mention the creatures that threaded their soil also.

They hadn't a guarantied way to protect at least one person from every family, they hadn't any shining contact that would facilitate that, other than Dumbledore, and him they didn't want to include in their plans.

What they had were the calculations about the one great and several minor ley lines of Wizarding Britain, and a few ideas to research in order to recreate the spell that centuries ago tied the magic of the pureblood families to the earth of their country, and undeniable proof of the slight inclination towards a light-oriented environment that was the cause of the birth of two Dark Lords that century. Magic itself looked to recover its equilibrium, yet the wix themselves broke it more as the time passed by.

Ro didn't know if she could trust Narcissa Malfoy nee Black with such delicate information, or even if she wanted to, because while the Narcissa of their time gave her life for Draco, she wasn't sure that this one would put Draco first instead of her husband too. She hadn't given birth to him, after all, some part of that mother-son connection surely had been lost while travelling to the past.

However time was wasting and they were no closer to have better answers, sooner or later Riddle would launch an attack that'd signal the beginning of the First War against the magical population, not only the veiled threats to the muggles that his Death Eaters were still doing, and once it happened shit would hit the fan.

Would Narcissa give them the diary? She herself had gotten and destroyed the diadem and the ring already, but the locket still wasn't present at the cave -which she had located after looking for Wool's Orphanage- and who knew when had he given Bellatrix the cup. Harry's scar was practically erased from his forehead in comparison to the black, markedly presence it was in their first years at Hogwarts, and that was something to cheer to.

“I'll ask Draco if he could get in contact with Narcissa semi-regularly; maybe if he evaluates her he'll be able to tell us if she'll be of help to us” concluded the redhead while frowning. “She'd be our best bet, but I don't know just how much assistance could she lend us before Malfoy kills her once again” murmured to herself, contemplative.

“How are going the twins with their besides project?” inquired after several minutes.

“They have crafted over two hundred fake identities already, with all the papers needed to pass for authentic muggles”. “Tell me that they have done too some explanatory paper or the people we'll smuggle out will be as lost as a child left on the streets” semi-prayed Ro with both hands intertwined.

“To tell you the truth, I don't know?”

They looked at each other before a sigh escaped both their lungs. “Want to take a cup of cocoa? I think we need it” suggested the muggleborn standing up from her chair. “Please” answered Ro before going to ask her siblings if they wanted something to eat.

  
From time to time, James and his friends sent her a letter, telling her how were doing the time-travellers. While one of those was her son, she wasn't able to muster care enough about him; he was just that one boy who went to Hogwarts for a year with her.

There wasn't much to do back at Cokeworth in her opinion, but she had gone back to try and reconnect with her older sister when there wasn't meetings for the Order of the Phoenix or James tried to take her on a date on the Muggle world.

Petunia had been the one to bury their parents that year in the middle of the academic course and hadn't seen fit to even send a letter while it was happening. It had been later, when she was already preparing for the NEWTs, that she had received notice of her parents' deaths.

And while she was trying, it wasn't easy for Petunia to accept her at the moment. There had been several, long years of dislike between them for now to simply overcome. There were snide comments, small resentments that had grown bigger with the passing time, a mistrust of all things magic and the hurting of their mutual abandonment, among their shared tragedy and that new sense of being orphaned.

Some days she thought they were making steady progress just to have her efforts thrown back at her the next day, others they were unable to see eye to eye. And in the middle of it all, cries in the night, a war and rising stress levels. In order to feel useful Lily had started to ward the house they had grew up in, so Petunia would be safe there despite loathing all-things-magic.

She had also explained the reasons why to her sister, and that hadn't been a nice chat for any of them. However Petunia was practical when it mattered, for all her irrational fury and deep-running scorn, and accepted Lily's way to take care of her after an evening of consideration.

  
“Mum, mum, you know when uncles Fred, G and Ro will come visit?” asked little Charlie, with big round eyes shining excitedly while he practically jumped in front of Molly.

A few weeks had passed since their argument, almost two months already, and none of the three had tried to contact them. It wasn't like they could drop by their home, or send a letter when Errol always came back without finding them.

That had been a much-needed time of reflection for her. While she still had her ill thoughts regarding the Slytherins, especially when she read the news about attacks on unsuspecting families of muggles, she could grudgingly admit that what two of her sons had said was true. Partially. Even if both of them had been rather intense in their ways to convey it.

It had been strange from the very first minute, meeting those three sons of hers that weren't born yet. Both her and Arthur had _known_ it once they laid eyes on them. Those three belonged to their blood, were their kin and it couldn't be denied.

Even if she couldn't understand them and their thoughts, even if she knew practically nothing of their upbringing and the circumstances that had made them grow to be the way they were. After speaking about it with her favourite aunt, Ginevra Macmillan nee Prewett, she realized that rather than making an effort to get to know them she had made assumptions about them and automatically encased them all on certain boxes that proved to be untrue.

Something she shouldn't have done; maybe if she had raised them she could feel entitled to do so, knowing them and having a previous understanding of the things that had occurred on their lives, but that wasn't the case. Sure, she had raised them all, but not in this time. She had naught a memory or knowledge about them prior to Dumbledore informing her and Arthur of their presence at Hogwarts.

It hadn't been the easiest of the realizations. It wasn't something nice to know about oneself, much less acknowledging it and trying to correct it could prove difficult. And it wasn't as if she could try to apologize and start over with no means to communicate with them, ashamed of herself as she was. However something had to give, and it would be her this time. She was their mother, she had to be the one to be the first step.

Responsibility was all about accountability, and parenting was all about it too. More than anything else, she wanted to be a good mother. That would not be while she still refused to listen to her sons, as her aunt had told her.

“I don't know, dear, but I'll ask them to know when they'll be able to come to the Burrow to share a meal with us at home, agreed?” she smiled down to him and Charlie nodded energetically. “Yes! Thank you mum!” and with that he proceeded to look for his older brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll have all realised that different people have different reactions to our little group, and that not everyone considers them to be 'theirs'. It's for some weird decision of mine, that Lily feels no especial connection to Harry because she isn't as in-tune to her magic as people who had grown up around it. Even if she were to feel that she'd tell herself that is stupid and deny it. In Remus' case, we all know that he doesn't love himself very much because of the wolf, and is more a “I don't deserve this” kind of thing, not allowing himself to feel or accept his son because what kind of girl would want to be with him?  
It's all very complex and I myself don't really understand it completely at times, and I'm the one writing it! Partially because I want to make Magic more than what it is portrayed as in the series, partially because I'm touching feelings here that not always are easy to comprehend, and I end giving myself a headache most times.  
Plus, regarding Molly's part: while she is correct that listening to her sons is a first step (and a very good one), when she says that [maybe if she had raised them she could feel entitled to do so, knowing them and having a previous understanding of the things that had occurred on their lives] it's a VERY HURTFUL AND WRONG WAY TO ABORD IT. A horrible way to look at it, but she is learning at the moment. Hopefully she'll learn better in the future.


End file.
